Anyone know the name of this building which keep cropping up in SF shows?

[JunkMonkey]

I've lost track of the number of times I have seen this building used in TV shows. But where is it? I'm guessing from the fact that it has turned up in Stargate Atlantis , Andromeda, and at least one episode of Masters of Science Fiction which were all filmed in Canada that it is somewhere in Canada.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Right, recognised it from the start from Stargate SG1...but also Battlestar Galactica (at least that's what I think)

So I did a bit of digging and found this image for the Simon Fraser University. British Columbia, Canada. Match!

 

[KGeo777]

Looks like Simon Fraser University.

George Peppard made a movie there.

 

[KGeo777]

Oops someone beat me to it.

 

[alexvss]

It's hideous.

 

[KGeo777]

It was nicknamed the "high school on the hill." The design idea was to link every faculty by a tunnel system.

On the other hand University of BC is spread out in multiple buildings.

I got tired of seeing the Vancouver Art Gallery in tv and film.
They used it for everything.
There was a utility corridor stairwell and in a tv Nick Fury movie, David Hasslehoff descended it to find a Hydra bad guy.

I can spot that green forest look of the area here.
It can't double for a lot of places --I was one of those glad the X Files went to California since they could have better desert locations for Area 51 stuff.

I did see them filming once--I was on my way to see the Empire Strikes Back special edition and there were Mulder and Scully standing in front the Vancouver Art gallery.
It is weird to watch them on Sunday and then see them on a mid day looking the same and doing what they do.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Right, recognised it from the start from Stargate SG1...but also Battlestar Galactica (at least that's what I think)
So I did a bit of digging and found this image for the Simon Fraser University. British Columbia, Canada. Match!

Thank you! It's weird and unsettling seeing places you know well turn up out of context in films and TV shows. I live in the Highlands and often see characters on screen driving down roads I know, turn a corner and be 30 miles away going in the opposite direction to the way the characters say they are going. (Dare I mention the opening sequence of Trainspotting to an Edinburgh resident?)

Even weirder is finding yourself somewhere and having a total sense of deja vu and then working out it's because you had seen the place in a film. The only TV acting job I ever had was shot on a beach on Loch Morar. And I KNEW I'd been there... but hadn't. I realised a few days later the beach had been used as a location in the Liam Neeson Rob Roy a couple of years before. Another time I was in LA going to a meeting in the Century City Plaza and was hit by Mega Deja Vu Squared - I worked that one out while I was there. Conquest of Planet of the Apes had been filmed there. I hadn't seen the film for years but it came back to me within minutes. The oddest one though was watching a movie in a cinema on 3rd St Santa Monica and realising the scene I was watching had been filmed yards away from where I was sitting and if the wall I was staring at was taken away I would see where the action of the film was taking place. I can't remember for the life of me what the film was.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Thank you! It's weird and unsettling seeing places you know well turn up out of context in films and TV shows. I live in the Highlands and often see characters on screen driving down roads I know, turn a corner and be 30 miles away going in the opposite direction to the way the characters say they are going. (Dare I mention the opening sequence of Trainspotting to an Edinburgh resident?)

It was spooky. From Princes Street to just outside The Venue in an instant. Being high on drugs must give you superpowers.

 

[hitmouse]

It was nicknamed the "high school on the hill." The design idea was to link every faculty by a tunnel system.

On the other hand University of BC is spread out in multiple buildings.

I got tired of seeing the Vancouver Art Gallery in tv and film.
They used it for everything.
There was a utility corridor stairwell and in a tv Nick Fury movie, David Hasslehoff descended it to find a Hydra bad guy.

I can spot that green forest look of the area here.
It can't double for a lot of places --I was one of those glad the X Files went to California since they could have better desert locations for Area 51 stuff.

I did see them filming once--I was on my way to see the Empire Strikes Back special edition and there were Mulder and Scully standing in front the Vancouver Art gallery.
It is weird to watch them on Sunday and then see them on a mid day looking the same and doing what they do.

Vancouver is used as backdrop for loads of stuff, and is quite recognisable if you know what you are looking at. Most of the outside scenes in Battlestar Galactica seem to have been shot there.

 

[Dave]

often see characters on screen driving down roads I know, turn a corner and be 30 miles away going in the opposite direction to the way the characters say they are going.

That happens a lot. I get interested when it's a place a know; "Oh! Look! It's <insert random north London market>," only for them to turn a corner and be 10 miles away in another part of London. In the film of The Likely Lads they drive over the Tyne Bridge with a caravan going south and then somehow are on the Coast Road in Wallsend going east.

FYI I recently did this 'City on the Screen' self guided walk around the City of London - The City on Screen Self-Guided Walk - City of London

 

[KGeo777]

There's one X-Files that was infamous for an incest plot (they only aired it once) and the house they used is one you could see regularly on a lonely highway area.

There's no desert here--so when shows need a desert they use a sand pit which is not very impressive. The sand is not even yellow.

At one time Hollywood set a few movies in Canada--throwing a bone to Canadian content because Canada was discouraged from helping its own artists.

There was a 1969 Hollywood film called THE MAD ROOM which is set in Vancouver Island--it's amusing for the inaccuracies of the region. There's a housewives party and they are dressed up so fancy and no one dresses like that here. And Severn Darden plays a building contractor--that's not the job you usually identity with him--it's officials and scientists and cult leaders. And in Canada it is customary you take off your shoes when you enter a house and I don't think they often show that.


There's a 1975 movie RUSSIAN ROULETTE which is set in Vancouver--it's neat when you spot someone who you never knew was in the area-Nigel Stock drives over the Oak Street bridge.
Christopher Lee made a movie in Vancouver--THE KEEPER--it's so bad.
The worst movie of his I have seen.
Worse than MEATCLEAVER MASSACRE.

Oliver Reed made a movie here in the 1960s.

I knew someone who came from the town where THE THING 1982 was shot and they remember when it was being filmed.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

IMDB has a feature whereby you can find all the films that have used a certain location

Advanced search

www.imdb.com

Simon Fraser is obviously very popular amongst the sci-fi community