Objects with a reason:the apartment design and furniture selection in The Drama
Kristoffer Borgli's A24 film stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson — but Charlie Thompson's Boston apartment is a masterclass in mixing eras. The Bauhaus chairs, Noguchi lamps, and 18th-century Windsor chair that make the set design work.
Production designer Zosia Mackenzie's set for Charlie's Boston apartment layers Bauhaus modernism, mid-century Japanese design, and 18th-century English vernacular into a space that feels completely lived-in.
Dir. Kristoffer Borgli A24, 2026 Prod. design: Zosia Mackenzie
I watched The Drama and could not stop staring at the apartment. Multiple eras, multiple designers, completely different vibes — and it holds. Nothing is decorative for the sake of it.
This apartment feels completely right for Charlie Thompson — Robert Pattinson's character, a museum director with a serious eye. Nothing matches and everything belongs. That's the hardest thing to pull off in a real interior, let alone a film set. Production designer Zosia Mackenzie built a space that does the character work before Pattinson says a word.
01
Wassily Chair
Marcel Breuer, 1925 — Bauhaus
The idea came from bicycle handlebars. Breuer was at the Bauhaus when he started asking what a chair would look like if you stripped it to its structural minimum — and replaced wood with bent steel tube. The answer was this. Angular, skeletal, still completely modern 100 years later.
A lot of what came out of the Bauhaus became iconic. This is probably the most visible example — and one of the chairs that proved industrial materials could be furniture.
02
Cesca Chair
Marcel Breuer, 1928
Same logic — bent steel, cantilevered, no back legs. The whole frame is one continuous arc. It shouldn't feel stable, but it does. The most copied chair in history. You've already seen it somewhere this week.
Two Breuer pieces in the same room is a statement about Charlie's taste — precise, historically grounded, not showy.
03
Akari Floor Lamp + Ceiling Pendant
Isamu Noguchi, from 1951
Two Noguchi pieces in the same apartment. The Akari series started in 1951 — handmade in Japan, washi paper over bamboo armatures, each one slightly different. Noguchi designed over 200 variations. I've been to his museum in New York and the garden he designed in LA. The man understood light like almost nobody else.
The ceiling pendant is easy to dismiss as a simple sphere. Don't. Look at the horizontal metal wires holding the form — they're not straight. They curve in a wave. That detail is the whole thing. It's the difference between a lamp and an object.
04
HAY Matin Table Lamp
HAY
Pleated shade, minimal stem. One of those pieces that doesn't ask for attention — it just makes everything around it feel more considered. That's a specific and underrated skill in design and in set dressing.
05
Windsor Chair
18th century
The oldest piece in that apartment by about 200 years. English vernacular, hand-turned spindles, made before the Bauhaus existed as an idea. Doesn't look out of place for a second. That's the point — pieces with real provenance don't need to match anything. They just are.
This apartment feels completely right for Charlie Thompson — Robert Pattinson's character, a museum director with a serious eye. Nothing matches and everything belongs. That's the hardest thing to pull off in a real interior, let alone a film set. Production designer Zosia Mackenzie built a space that does the character work before Pattinson says a word.
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