The Fascinating Secret Behind The Bridge Model In Die Hard

Ah, Die Hard. It’s the Christmas movie people love to pretend isn’t a Christmas movie because they can’t reconcile the idea of something bad happening on Christmas. Santa wouldn’t let that happen, right? Anyway, it’s a movie about some menacing bad guys, lead by one Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), taking over a corporate holiday party, only to face off against an unexpected wild card named John McClane. There’s a certain neat little detail in the film that you might have missed, but we’re here to bring it to your attention today.

If it’s been a while since you’ve watched the film, fire it up, and tune in around the 27-minute mark. We see Gruber walking around a series of models with his hostage, Mr. Takagi, the President of Nakatomi Trading. He sets his eye on a gorgeous model of a bridge, leading Takagi to question whether Gruber’s interest lay in the company’s “project in Indonesia.” Not the case, as Gruber readily admits, but let’s hone in on the model.

Architecture buffs will recognize the piece as a model of the Butterfly Bridge, as designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Far from a 1980s project designed for Indonesia, it was a mid-century project designed for San Francisco. Almost immediately after the Bay Bridge was built in the 1930s, traffic was considered excessive and there were calls from some quarters for a second span to be built. As one of the nation’s foremost architects, and a lover of San Francisco, Frank Lloyd Wright eventually took it upon himself to design a bridge for this very purpose, and spent much of the 1950s trying to cajole Californian authorities into building it.

As was his style, Wright eschewed traditional methods and went his own way when he penned the gorgeous Butterfly Bridge design. The bridge relies on swooping concrete forms rather than unsightly suspension cables or simple flat cantilever sections. Carrying three lanes of traffic in each direction along with two pedestrian walkways, the bridge split the roadways in the middle to feature a large garden in the center. The idea was that traffic could actually stop in the middle of the span to enjoy the green space and sea air. The proposed route would have seen the bridge built south of the existing Bay Bridge, starting at Cesar Chavez St on the San Francisco side, heading out over the bay towards Oakland.

The bridge would never come to fruition, with government officials considering the proposed bridge too risky. Without a commission to build the bridge, the money wasn’t there to explore a full engineering design for the project, and Wright’s glorious design ended up shelved.

The question then stands as to how this bridge ended up in Die Hard. The answer is actually quite simple—it’s all down to the influence of producer Joel Silver. Silver is a huge fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, and that shows through quite heavily in the film. For example, in Nakatomi Plaza, where the film takes place, the actual atrium in which the hostages are held was modeled after Fallingwater, one of the more famous houses that Wright designed during his lifetime. That was the idea of production designer Jackson De Govia, who was familiar with Silver’s taste in architecture.

As for the bridge model, what you’re looking at in the film may actually be an authentic piece, according to one source. In the article “20 Interesting Facts About Die Hard” from All The Right Movies, Charlie Bleecker states that the model was spotted by de Govia in a Frank Lloyd Wright book. He then apparently arranged for it to be shipped from Wright’s Arizona residence to be used on the set.

That’s a big claim with plenty of detail, but one we haven’t been able to completely verify. It’s worth noting that in the film, the bridge model is sitting on a rectangular mirrored table, while some images from the 1950s show it on a table with what appear to be rounded edges. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation appears to currently maintain a model of the bridge, too, but it’s less grandiose and sits on a thin table against a wall as of 2021. It may be that the bridge model itself was considered separate from any tables it was displayed on over the years. In any case, The Autopian has reached out to De Govia’s people to try and shed some light on the matter. As you can imagine, the production designer for Die Hard is big enough to have his own people.

And speaking of being famous, at the time the bridge model was probably more notable than the lead antagonist. Alan Rickman’s prior credits before Die Hard were largely in the world of classical theatre. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s population measured in the millions in the middle of the century. Today, Rickman, who passed in 2016, is obviously a far bigger star than a bridge that was never built, but Wright’s creation deserves its due.

In any case, San Francisco has long abandoned the idea of doing more road bridges over the Bay. That’s fine from a transit perspective, but we really wish someone had built the Butterfly as designed. It’s gorgeous, and we need more of that beauty in the world.

Image credits: Die Hard/20th Century Fox via screenshot