FIRE AND
T he Rings of Power travels through the uncharted territory of the Second Age of Middle-earth, home to a host of species as they existed thousands of years before their Third Age counterparts. “Tolkien created languages and created cultures. We really respected that when we created the worlds for the series; every piece of furniture was a symbol in that language,” explains Set Decorator Megan Vertelle. “There’s no Tolkien IKEA, so we have to go back to that place where as children we read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , and dig into our imagination. It’s almost like a form of psychology, because you have to channel all that character, and channel that world.” For Production Designer Ramsey Avery, the look and feel of each individual species’ environment had to address the “emotional characteristics” of each culture. When it came to the Dwarves, the proud and industrious cave-dwellers who wrought kingdoms out of mountains, that starting point was their relationship with stone. “At one point, in one of the scripts, one of the characters used to say: ‘The gods created the Dwarves out of stone and flame,’ and to me that was the touchstone of what Khazad-dûm should be—this sense that it’s alive.” Avery and his team sought to bring life into the stone walls of Khazad-dûm by focusing on three key elements: light, water, and greenery: “It’s kind of the opposite of everything we’ve ever seen with the Dwarves before, so it was critical to find the answers of how you represent life under the rock.” The Lindon tree, gifted to Prince Durin by Elrond, that stands resplendent in his chambers,
makes it clear that this is a subterranean world, teeming with life and light. This was an aspect also reflected throughout the entire set. “Of course, they’re mining and bringing things out of the ground,” says Vertelle. “And so, how can we best show that in the furniture? We looked at heavy, Byzantine forms, chunky gems; raw materials; chunks of gold. All things that have a real presence.” The team drew inspiration from the rough-hewn, angular figures of Tolkien’s Dwarf language in the design and shape of the furniture, such as the striking chairs in Durin and Disa’s dining room, which are studded with gold-ore settings. And there, surrounding it all, is stone. But how do you make stone feel “alive”? “We made sure the architecture always grew out of the stone,” explains Avery. “The rooms are actually almost just bare, rock walls, so that lets the rock always be present, and the stone always be a part of their world.” The Dwarves of the Second Age live in communion with their geological surroundings, with an ever-present personal touch: “It wasn’t that they were building blocks into the stone or they were hacking the stone out to make huge architecture. The rock is always there, the veins of the rock are there. There are cracks in the rock, corners chipped off because to the Dwarves, that’s what’s important. They live in the rock.” The choice of building material isn’t the only point of difference between the Dwarves and their fellow Middle-earth dwellers: The very lines that define their language and architecture are unique. “One of the things that differentiates the Dwarf world is angles,” explains Avery. In acute
STONE: SCULPTING KHAZAD-DÛM Drawing on the elements, memory, and lore to bring this teeming land to life
“One of the characters used to say: ‘The gods created the Dwarves out of stone and flame,’ and to me that was the touchstone of what Khazad-dûm should be—this sense that it’s alive.”
contrast to the square forms of the human world Númenor, the elegant verticality and cursive strokes of the Elven realm, or the natural, circular shapes of the Harfoot clan, Dwarven architecture is filled with triangles and diamonds that recall not just the precious jewels mined from deep inside the mountain, but also what Avery calls the “characteristics of construction”: “They literally found the shape within the rock, bit by bit, by bit.” These shapes strike to the heart of Dwarven character: They may be strong and sharp, but they’re crafted with care.
— Megan Vertelle, Set Decorator
Above: The entrance to Khazad-dûm displays the diamond and angular “characteristics of construction” found in Dwarven architecture.
Color contrasts within the Dwarves’ royal chambers. Top: The interior light that provides the source of life to Durin’s Lindon tree, gifted by Elrond. Bottom: The warmth of Durin and Disa’s dining area.
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