Rik Allen, Starship Enterprise, 2011.
Star Trek made its debut on NBC Thursday, September 8th, 1966. The episode (which, as some Trekkies might know, was, “The Man Trap”) was squashed in between episodes of Tarzan and The Hero. In the 45 years hence, the Star Trek universe expanded by eleven films, five television shows (including an animated series), and countless novels, comics and video games. It is safe to say that the show’s cultural impact has been broad and, it is also safe to say, that over those more than four decades, fans have found a plethora of ways to express their love and devotion to the show. Well, here is one more. Artist Rik Allen’s latest addition to his rapidly expanding line of spaceship sculptures is a blown glass and metal steampunk vision of the NCC-1701 emblazoned Starship Enterprise.
A little over a year ago Allen, a lifelong Star Trek devotee who’s earliest memories of creation involved making scotch tape and cardboard phasers and communicators, was contacted by Eugene (Rod) Roddenberry, son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and current spokesman for Trekkies everywhere. Intrigued by Allen’s work after seeing a piece one of his friends owned, Roddenberry commissioned a sculpture of the original series’ Starship Enterprise. The sculpture was to reflect the basic design of the original Enterprise, but also incorporate Allen’s personality into a sculpture that was of his own original design and overall interpretation.
"Starship Enterprise" by Rik Allen (2011)
The piece began with a few layout sketches that became the project’s blueprints. “I had designed a layout that could accommodate the weight of the individual sections without appearing too bulky or intrusive,” Allen says. “We started with the blowing of the saucer section, then built the frame and skeleton from stainless steel stock and found objects that we later machined. Matching the parts was a combination of machining metal and grinding the glass to find a happy place.” The major difficulty in the creation came when trying to keep the layout in scale and orientation that reflected the original ship. The Enterprise, a science fiction icon, has a layout that includes large pieces connected to other large pieces only by smaller (and potentially unstable) pieces. The layout, “offers challenges when attempting to keep a great degree of transparency without jeopardizing the structural integrity, and keeping with the very familiar proportions of the Enterprise.”
Allen’s major departure from the classic vision of the starship is his use of distressed metal and weathered surfaces, a look that is almost anathema to the sleek and polished whites of the series. Allen says one of the reasons for this look is to, “connect the piece to the obvious relationship with my body of work, which is most often worked over with scavo, acid, oxides, oils or whatever I can throw at it. I relate to the sense of real wear and decay, the wabbi-sabi appreciation of the imperfect. The Star Trek world, including the ships, and most of the film sets were most often hermetically sterile, where never was there an indication that anything in their world seemed out of place, or subject to wear or decay. My world, especially my studio, was always nicely trimmed with roughness, carbon soot, and patinated edges.”
Roddenberry (left) and Allen with the finished product
The finishing touch, a Starfleet insignia base, required the help of Roddenberry. “The Starfleet insignia base was something I had wanted to do,” says Allen. “When I had run the idea by Rod, he loved the idea, and had sent me a image of the official insignia proportions.” The piece was installed a year after the original concept was born to the delight of Roddenberry and the envy of Star Trek fans everywhere.
—Jason Gutierrez