Alexandra Lange
Architecture & design critic

When Life Looks Like a Wes Anderson Movie

Roberts Cottages, Oceanside, CA. Photo by Paul Fuentes.

The last shelters on the Marangu route to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro are little structures known as Kibo huts, the first built in 1932. When Robert Hune-Kalter, a Colorado-based bank employee, reached the huts, in July 2019, he might have been thinking of nothing but scrambling to the top of Africa’s highest peak. But he found himself admiring their triangular shapes with their steep, green-painted gables and vertical black siding.

“I liked how symmetrical it was,” he said, “and even mentioned to my friend that it reminded me of the symmetry of a Wes Anderson scene.”

After descending, he sent a hut photo to the Instagram account “Accidentally Wes Anderson,” where it joined pictures of pointy roofs taken in Wildwood, N.J.; Siglufjordur, Iceland; and Whitehorse, the capital of Canada’s Yukon Territory. All these places resembled alternative sets for Mr. Anderson’s 2012 film “Moonrise Kingdom,” a golden-toned story of young love set against rocky shores, lighthouses and scout camping tents.