Meet John Portman, the Architect Behind the Dystopian Backdrops of The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games

Between the Frank Gehrys and the Zaha Hadids of the world, the name John Portman easily flies under the radar. Yet the 90-year-old American architect, whose career took root in Atlanta, Georgia and has stretched all the way across Asia, has perhaps scored more screen time than most starchitects. Portman's buildings—featuring his signature mix of Modernism and Brutalism, highlighted by massive atriums and long, glassy elevators—has appeared in dozens of movies over the last three decades, including Sharky's Machine (1981), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), and Mission Impossible III (2006). But more recently, they have also come to set the scene for Hollywood's most popular dystopian thrillers, such as The Hunger Games and Divergent, not to mention TV's The Walking Dead.

Recognize any of these buildings? >>