Love that Marshwiggle house concept!  I suspect Lewis may have been inspired by the crannog houses of early Scotland, which would have been home to many marsh-dwelling fisherfolk. ( These structures were often on stilts raised above the water and connected to each other  by boardwalks and causeways, but I doubt the Marshwiggles would like such connections, being people who like privacy. )

One small detail I'm hoping to see: a lot of rough bark shingles on rooftops in the towns like Beruna and Chippingford. Something about them gives a building an inexpressibly natural, Narnian feel. At least to me. 

I was actually thinking about this couple days ago when I was creating graphics for a new Narnia buying and selling group on Facebook– I borrowed the group name from the Chippingford Market in The Last Battle, and while we don't know much about the area, we do know it's down river from Cauldron Pool, and they sold items to talking animals. 

After scouring the web for images that would represent that, I came across this picture and the stone and flags with animals on it gave me such a beautiful Narnia vibe. I could totally see it being part of the landscape of the market:  

I really like the concept for the marsh-wiggles, @rose. The pointed roofs echo the Puddleglum’s pointed hat!  The mention of wigwams seems a little out of place in the world of Narnia though, as much of the architecture styles mentioned in Narnia are almost exclusively from the “Old World” (Europe, the Middle East, and Asia) and not from the Americas.  

@rose, I also enjoyed your concepts of Miraz’s castle (fits with the strict, dull, stick-to-the-essentials nature of the Telmarines), and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon would be a fascinating direction for the adaptations to take.  It would definitely allow for the amount of opulence and lush plants and flowers described in HHB because I think Tashbaan should be over-the-top and absolutely gorgeous (at least for the Tisroc and the Tarkaans) so that the clash of cultures and values would be even starker.  The open-air arches and pools of water/fountain are also a must, as Tashbaan is in a desert (maybe even a reflecting pool, like a smaller version of the one in front of the Taj Mahal).  However, I think there should also be quite a bit of domes, too, as described in the book (though not in excess, as it could quickly become too much of a cliche).  

@eustace, I also like the concept of Fort Agra in India for Anvard.  Very red sandstone-y and quite the intimidating fortress (and no moat, like the book).  However, I think that because Anvard is caught between two countries and also two cultures (as well as having a distinct culture of its own), I think that the castle at Anvard should have both Calormene (Middle Eastern/Eastern) and Narnian (Medieval European) influences.  I like how this castle (the first entry on the list: Hohenzollern Castle in Germany) looks, and there is a reddish tinge to the stone, although that could be just an artifact of the lighting.  It is on a hill and looks quite the fortress.  Perhaps Anvard could look like a combination of the red sandstone, sprawling nature of Fort Agra (which looks fairly low to the ground compared to other castles) with plenty of arches (it is Archenland, after all  ) and maybe a few domes and the high spires and squarish towers of Hohenzollern.

As for the White Witch and LotGK’s respective castles, I think that the White Witch’s should be stone, as @cleander pointed out, but I’d also want it to look like it’s been in the grip of an enchanted winter, too, so that means lots of snow and ice about and fountains frozen in fantastical shapes.  There is a lot of potential for LotGK’s castle.  Part of me thinks that it should be naturally integrated into the landscape, and part of me thinks that it should really stand out.  I love the picture that Rose linked, and also like this one below.  I’d love to see the incorporation of mushrooms into the castle somewhere.  Perhaps a few of the towers could mimic mushroom caps, or the steps leading up to the castle (or window sills) could be made of bracket fungi or oyster mushrooms (or even have them jutting out in random places on the walls of the castle!).  I think that it would give an even sinister atmosphere/foreshadowing, as if “Underland is taking over the castle,” which does end up happening in the end.  Regardless, it’s my headcanon that they use glowing mushrooms as light sources (any of these would interesting to see, albeit in a more diverse range of colors because they’d be magical!).  Perhaps the LotGK could even have bioluminescent gardens!

@rose

1) I took a look at that photo before I read your comment, and I instantly thought, "That's Harfang!" I would like to see more castles than we saw in the three Walden films. Anvard, in Underland, the rebuilt Cair Paravel are some of them. And Tashbaan is an architectural wonder in its own right! To me, that is one of Bayne's best lllustrations in the series. For Miraz's castle, I would like to see a unique stlye. In Walden's film, it looks cool and domineering, but does not look like one that descendants of pirates would have made.

2)

(And very convenient for naiads, merpeople, and aquatic animals visiting the castle, too. )

It's a far cry from a wigwam (which for some reason I always thought looked like a teepee, but no, it's completely different ),

I didn't think of the water in the castle walls being useful for the water-based creatures, but that makes so mch sense! Thanks for sharing that. Side note: I do like the mermaids in Walden's LWW. And they were a cool part of the trailer. But I wish we got to see more of them in VDT. In the book there is a wonderful scene where Lucy gets a glimpse into the fierce merpeople land. I felt jibbed by only having just one or two mermaids made out of CGI water.

In terms of wigwams, I also thought they looked like teepees! I have a feeling the book describes them in a way that seem more like teepees in my mind. Or maybe BBC's adaptation has them looking like that? Update: I just looked up BBC's SC and they are like wigwams inspired by haystacks.

If they film in the UK they might be able to use real castles.  Cair Paravel in the movies was a bit too elaborate.  Something simpler might have been better.  I think Aslan would have liked something humbler.  There is nothing in the books to suggest that Narnia was wealthy and powerful.

Posted by: @cleander

Love that Marshwiggle house concept!  I suspect Lewis may have been inspired by the crannog houses of early Scotland, which would have been home to many marsh-dwelling fisherfolk.

Ooh, I think I remember you mentioning those somewhere else on the forum! Looking at the Wikipedia page, it looks like the ancient builders used almost exactly the same building technique in the video I linked, but raised up on stilts over water. So cool. I wonder if the filmmakers could actually use one of the reconstructions as a filming location.... I'm not sure about Scottish Narnia fans, but I feel like most people have never clapped eyes on a structure like that, and they look very "fantasy" imo.

Turn the open water into a marsh in post-production, and this would look really cool:

Love the idea of drawing influence from both modern-day Hohenzollern Castle in Germany and Fort Agra in India for Archenland Castle, @wanderer.

Posted by: @wanderer

 Perhaps the LotGK could even have bioluminescent gardens!

And I love this!! I think "creepy beautiful" is exactly the aesthetic they should go for with the LotGK's castle, and bioluminescent mushrooms would be perfect for that. (There's also that subconscious connection of mushrooms = possibly poisonous.)

Posted by: @jonathan-paravel

And Tashbaan is an architectural wonder in its own right! To me, that is one of Bayne's best lllustrations in the series.

Ditto!

I saw this stunning picture of Mont-Saint-Michel a few months ago, and while the castle isn't right (it's my idea of Cair Paravel, after all ), I immediately thought of the city of Tashbaan rising above the mist, with herds of oxen in the plains surrounding it. I hope that's how we first see Tashbaan in the movie, slowly revealed by the morning mist like Lewis describes in the book.

Posted by: @jonathan-paravel

In terms of wigwams, I also thought they looked like teepees! I have a feeling the book describes them in a way that seem more like teepees in my mind. Or maybe BBC's adaptation has them looking like that? Update: I just looked up BBC's SC and they are like wigwams inspired by haystacks.

I think I've just realized the problem: in the first illustration we see of Puddleglum in The Silver Chair, little Marshwiggle houses dot the landscape beyond him, and Pauline Baynes drew them all in the shape of teepees. No wonder that idea is so firmly entrenched in my brain.

Posted by: @narnian78

Cair Paravel in the movies was a bit too elaborate.  Something simpler might have been better.  I think Aslan would have liked something humbler.  There is nothing in the books to suggest that Narnia was wealthy and powerful.

Yes, especially in the time of MN and LWW. I actually think it will be a really fun project for the filmmakers, though: the development of Narnia throughout the centuries. It doesn't stand to reason that Cair Paravel will look exactly the same in each age of Narnia, and very likely will grow and change with time. (I feel people who play the Civilization video games could comment on this at length. ) Even though the Narnians might have tried to recreate the castle as it was, I imagine the new Cair Paravel looked rather different after it was rebuilt from the old ruins in PC.

And during one of my re-readings of The Last Battle, I remember getting a little hung up on these lines:

... the last of the Kings of Narnia sat under the great oak which grew beside the door of his little hunting lodge, where he often stayed for ten days or so in the pleasant spring weather. It was a low, thatched building not far from the Eastern end of Lantern Waste and some way above the meeting of the two rivers. He loved to live there simply and at ease, away from the state and pomp of Cair Paravel, the royal city.

The royal city? State and pomp? That doesn't exactly sound like the Cair Paravel that I remember, even the one that's described a couple hundred years earlier (according to the Narnian timeline) when Jill and Eustace visited it. That paired with the existence of trading markets like Chippingford (I like that picture, @ericnovak!) gives me the sense that Narnia was... maybe growing too big for its britches by that time in history. It at least sounds like it had become too urban for Tirian's tastes. And the idea of Narnia itself becoming more "busy and business-y" does seem to fit with the general theme of LB.

I highly recommend Googling "castle concept art" for ideas (and for one's emotional well-being in this modern world ).

I don't know why the castle in Archenland is so decidedly squarular in my mind, but it is, and while this castle is a little bit rangier than what I picture, the bones of it and its banners are very Archenlandish, imo:

And this one is interesting for the White Witch's castle. First thing I thought of is how those high cliffs (natural? artificial?) might keep the sun from melting those high icy spires (if they're made from ice...) which makes me wonder if Netflix might put the castle at least in the shadow of a mountain. And I like how the centermost spire looks very like a sword or a knife.

I LOVE castles, so I could write a book with my two cents on the subject.  😀  But here's the short version:

• I'm okay with Cair Paravel looking more like a palace, but I always envisioned it as somewhere in between.  Sure it fell twice that we know of (once between LWW and PC and the other being LB), but it was still positioned at a strategic location.  Maybe something like Chateau Pierre LeFonze (probably butchering the name - it's where they filmed parts of "Merlin") - more elegant than most real historical castles in our world, but not just a fancy mansion.
• I agree that the White Witch's "house" should NOT be a generic ice queen's popsicastle!  😀  It may be a bit more palace-like as well (it was "all towers") but it was definitely stone.  She clearly wasn't concerned with anyone being stupid enough to even think about attacking her castle, or she would at least have the gate closed when Edmund came in.  It's hard to think of a castle in our world to model it after, apart from maybe the Tower of London + more towers and a courtyard (lol).  Not that her castle should be white, though that could work (and kind of fit); more just the idea of a big keep with towers all around, imposing and defensible but still not like the typical gray stone ones; not to mention its reputation.  I almost think if anyone in Narnia would have a whitewashed castle, it would be her - not just because she's "the White Witch (lol), but because if nothing else, it would help protect it against the constant snow.  And that style was popular in medieval times so like I said it could work.  The thing that gets me about her castle is its location: BETWEEN the two hills, and not ON a hill?  That doesn't say "impenetrable fortress" to me, which is why it's hard to find something to compare it to.  Bottom line, I think the Witch's castle should be like her - not creepy to look at, but dangerous and threatening (especially at night, like when Edmund gets there).
• Miraz's castle definitely would be more like a typical castle in our world, though I'm sure it would be much bigger.  Gray stone, walls without windows, etc. as others have said.  Actually, if you've ever seen the YouTube channel "Shadiversity", the guy who does those videos made a 3D castle model (he called it "Honorguard") that would fit perfectly, if you got rid of a couple pointed roofs and the big window on the keep.
• And I could see Anvard being made of red stone;  When I was a kid my dad took me to Fort Niagara - not technically a castle, but it has a moat and a drawbridge and battlements and other castle-like elements.  It was made of some kind of reddish-brown stone, like oversized bricks.  It had some gray parts too, and a lot of the pics I'm seeing of it now are more gray than I remember (though that was like 30 years ago).  Anyway I think it works.  It was a fortress, and that's exactly what Anvard was, so IMO it works.
• And the Tisroc's castle/palace/whatever really reminded me of something Arabian as a kid.  Kind of like Agraba in Aladdin, but bigger and fancier.  I'm not nearly as familiar with that sort of building as I am with European castles, but that's always how I saw it.
• Of course there's another place we haven't discussed yet: Charn.  It's obviously got to be way, WAY bigger than any castle in our world, but what would that look like?  Apart from dead I mean. 😀

Gee, guess I did write a book. 😀

I think the castles should look childlike but not to the point of looking pink with glitter as some may like. Narnia is very medieval. I think the filmmakers to the future films should base the structure of the castles off of medieval architecture and art. 

Posted by: @jewel

I think the castles should look childlike but not to the point of looking pink with glitter as some may like.

*glances at her sparkly Polly Pocket castle from the 90s* ... Don't give me any ideas.

...

But look at them! They're so cute!!!

In all seriousness, though, I like the idea of some of the castles having a "child-like" vibe. While obviously the colors and the glitter are going too far, the proportions of the towers have that innately "cute" look and I don't think that a bit of that would necessarily look out of place in Narnia. This castle in Lithuania has similar proportions and gives a warm/welcoming impression, while also being a real castle in the real world:

Posted by: @geekicheep

Of course there's another place we haven't discussed yet: Charn.  It's obviously got to be way, WAY bigger than any castle in our world, but what would that look like?  Apart from dead I mean.

Oooh, I had not given thought about Charn yet. On the one hand it's an alien civilization so that gives you a lot of creative space to play with, while on the other hand it doesn't seem super technologically advanced, at least based on the descriptions and what Jadis says about what life was like there before she destroyed everything. Maybe a mash-up of ancient Egypt with Atlantis, with the sea turned to salt and all of the canals run dry... that would be effectively spooky, I think.

Posted by: @rose

*glances at her sparkly Polly Pocket castle from the 90s* ... Don't give me any ideas.

 

I would have loved a castle like the ones you've shown there, when I was a kid!! But not quite a Narnian look, no.

Posted by: @rose

This castle in Lithuania has similar proportions and gives a warm/welcoming impression, while also being a real castle in the real world:

Now that castle actually bears some resemblance to Pauline Baynes' illustration of Cair Paravel at the end of LWW, except the turrets on hers are taller and skinnier! If that one could be redone in white — I'm pretty sure we're told Cair Paravel is made of white stone (can anyone remember where that's mentioned, if it is?) — it would really look the part, especially as it's on a peninsula, too.

Posted by: @rose

Maybe a mash-up of ancient Egypt with Atlantis, with the sea turned to salt and all of the canals run dry... that would be effectively spooky, I think.

That sounds pretty Charn-ish... mind you, do we know what Atlantis looked like? Possibly a bit of an ancient Greek vibe, or maybe even Babylonian — it definitely has to look huge and monumental and scary (and dead).

Have we talked about Calormen yet, especially Tashbaan and the Tisroc's palace? Lewis himself is pretty clearly going for a generic "Oriental" flavour there, somewhere between Middle Eastern and Indian, but I can see that being highly controversial in today's world (and I can understand why). I wouldn't blame the Netflix designers if they try not to make Calormen look too recognisably like any specific culture from our world, just so they don't get accused of negative stereotyping. The vital point is that it has to look and feel very different from Narnia, and I think it needs to convey the sense that this is a civilisation that's built on material wealth and personal power, in contrast with the simplicity and humility that (most) Narnians value.

Any other thoughts there?  

White stone makes me think of the White Tower of Ecthelion, and the idea of Weta Workshop as a good creation partner.

In Narnia: the drawing at the end of Ch 1 of Prince Caspian suggests stone walls that once had some sort of pale plaster or fine white stone, and was now partially fallen off.

I've just looked through the books and haven't found anything describing the castle's colour. Even the quay made of white marble, which the elderly King's ship leaves from in Silver Chair, has its colour, but the many-towered and turreted castle is given no colour.

https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/Cair_Paravel

I figured I should take a look at European palaces for some inspiration before commenting. A lot of them are very sprawling and blocky (rectangular). I feel like Cair Paravel needs to be light and delicate both inside and out. 

Also, I was watching Time Team today and was thinking that a broch could be an option for that place they go in The Last Battle to collect weapons and gear before the battle. It would be vaguely the right shape, at the very least.

In regards to the White Witch's castle, it might be interesting if it was made of stone, but completely coated in black ice. That way, in certain lights it would shine, while still being absolutely dangerous when you can't see it.

I always thought of Narnia as very English so I wouldn't really want to see it stray too far away from that.  It's one of the things I find appealing about the old BBC versions.  The White Witch's castle could have some other cultural influences to make it feel more like an "invader's" castle, I suppose.  I wasn't overly fond of the castle designs in the Walden Media movies.  Well, Miraz's castle was actually pretty fantastic but I didn't love Cair Paravel or the Witch's palace.   Keeping the castles more similar to ours would help with budgetary limits as they could film at actual locations.   Cair Paravel should feel tied to the castle esthetic but maybe with a sort of cathedral feel.  And real peacock feathers.