Alabasta Architecture: Part 3
American Influences
This post is part three of a series of posts analyzing the architecture of Alabasta. Read Part 2 here
Growing up in the Middle East, I thought the entirety of America was covered in lush green forests. Little did I know that the south-western portion of the United States was covered entirely in desert. I think the first time I was vaguely aware of a desert being a part of America was in the movie Oceans Eleven. The colorful Las Vegas skyline showed a barren dessert in the distance.
It’s funny that I mention Las Vegas, since the next location in Alabasta that will be analyzed is based on Las Vegas.
Rainbase
Rainbase is the odd city of the bunch. With circular buildings and Statutes and columns, one might think the city is based on Roman architecture. Within the context of the story however, the inspiration becomes clear.
Rainbase is a Casino city, this allows it to survive the recession that is hitting the rest of the country. It’s also Barouque Works base of operations. Crocodile’s front is being the owner of the biggest casino in Rainbase, Rain Dinners, the banana crocodile pyramid at the center of town.
Obviously, the city was inspired by Las Vegas. But the Rurubu goes into specifics, telling us that the Rain Dinners Casino is based on Luxor Las Vegas. The pyramid symbolism always seemed strange to me, since Alabasta itself doesn’t have ruins that look like pyramids (I will cover the ruins showed throughout the Alabasta arc in a future instalment). One Google search of Luxor Las Vegas showed exactly why Rain Dinners looks the way it does.
Yes, there is a hotel/ casino is Las Vegas that is shaped like a pyramid with a model sphinx out front (cause why wouldn’t there be). Even the palm trees are replicated in the Rain Dinners design. And if we look closer, you can see the similarities in the insides of the building as well:
I thought this was the end of my research on the casino inspired town. However, I was scrolling the Las Vegas images page and found a circular building that was similar to all the ones seen in the city:
A quick image search on Google will tell you that this is a coliseum look alike located in Caesars Palace, another hotel/ casino in Las Vegas. Themed after the Roman Empire, it features statues, columns, coliseums, and reflecting pools reminiscent of those times.
All of a sudden the architecture of the city makes a lot more sense. The rest of Alabasta has Islamic inspirations, with domes and minarets covering their skyline. And while some of that architecture can be seen here, Rainbase’s skyline is mostly dominated by columns, statues and coliseum like buildings.
But Rainbase isn’t based on Roman architecture. It was inspired by Caesars Palace’s over exaggeration of that time period. It explains why both ancient Egyptian and ancient Roman architecture are shown, as they are inspirations of the Fabulous Las Vega’s interpretation of those cultures architecture. Or at least that’s what I like to think.
Spiders Cafe
Spider’s Cafe is where the higher ranked Barouque Work members meet each other before they head for Rainbase. It looks like a normal enough building, with a diner like interior. And while it doesn’t seem like this location was inspired by a real life location, Oda surprises by taking inspiration for this particular building from a movie.
According to Oda in a response to a fan, the Spiders Café is based on the café from the movie Bagdad Cafe that was directed by Percy Adlon (One Piece Wiki)
I have verified that Bagdad Café is a real movie. The trailer can be watched below.
And while the plot of this movie has almost nothing to do with Alabasta, its main setting is used as inspiration for the Spiders Cafe:
“The restaurant used in the film is still operating and is located on National Trails Highway (Rt. 66) in Newberry Springs, California. It was renamed "Bagdad Cafe" after the film was released.” (IMDB)
While a deviation from the Arab and Islamic inspiration that this country is known for, it was fun to see what Oda could do with inspirations that deviated from the norm. And, if one looked at this change of inspiration from a thematic perspective, they could say that this change in style represented the different sides of the conflict.
This post mostly covered American inspired architecture in Alabasta:
While Rainbase is inspired by ancient Roman and Egyptian architecture, I believe it was more inspired by their Las Vegas counterparts, being a casino town. Also the Rurubu specifically states that Rain Dinners is inspired by Luxor Las Vegas.
The movie Bagdad Cafe was set in California, explicitly in the Mojave Desert.
Both the Spiders Café and Rainbase (more specifically Rain Dinners) are controlled by the villian’s of this arc, Barouque Works.
The rest of the country has Islamic and Arab inspired architecture:
Our hero’s resupply in Nanohana and get help from Ace.
In Yuba, the Strawhats meet Toto and he gives Luffy water from the oasis (the same water that helps him figure out how to defeat Crocodile).
Finally, we see the destruction Crocodile has wrought to Alabasta through Erumalu ruins.
The themes of the arc line up quite nicely when placed in this context.
However, there are still cities and ruins to explore in this ancient kingdom. Next time we will finally get to dig into the architecture of the capital of Alabasta, and see how its inspirations fit into the themes and designs of the desert nation at large.