Adam’s approach was also a product of Fleming’s own ideology1. Ian Fleming had a personal hatred of modernism, and was known to despise Le Corbusier, one of the pioneers of modern architecture. Fleming even went as far as to name one of his most famous villains after Erno Goldfinger, a modernist architect (and, incidentally, Fleming’s neighbor).

In particular, Fleming objected to modernism’s obsession with utopia, which was antithetical to his conservative ideology. Fleming saw the ideal world as existing in the past, within an already-existing power structure. Modernists like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe believed that architecture could be used to create a better, more ideal world, full of new conceptions of power. The Western world ran with modernism as a way to remove inefficiencies, construct a more prosperous society, and generally live out the principles of capitalism. In the USSR, modernism came to represent the goals of the communist project: leveling, equality, and a strong presence of the state.

Fleming’s distrust of modernism and utopia played out in the ideologies of Bond villains, which tend to be grounded in a distinctly modernist idea that technology and utilitarianism can radically improve humanity. Part of the reason that modernists were so drawn to utopia was that they shared a twin interest in the end of history. In creating the villains of the Bond franchise, Fleming took this theoretical idea and made it quite literal: nearly all of them harbor an obsession with ending history, usually through mass destruction.

The newer films, including the most recent series featuring Daniel Craig, are indebted to this architectural and ideological legacy.

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• 1. In contrast, Bond villains tend to inhabit sprawling modern spaces. Adam saw a link between modernist architecture and postwar power, one that was rooted in absolute control and a Cold War-era fear of worldwide destruction. Modernism, in Adam’s sets, represented a kind of cold power, one that is equal parts glamorous and evil. These sets were often specifically constructed to symbolize the megalomania of the villains themselves, as was the case for Blofeld’s volcano lair in You Only Live Twice. In other films, Adam takes iconic modernist buildings, like the Elrod House in Diamonds Are Forever, and turns their smooth lines and sweeping rooms into metaphors for the inhabitants’ calculated and ambitious evil plans. At the same time, the allure of these spaces is undeniable, creating a sense of heightened emotion and fantasy.