Set Design

Tour the High-Drama Sets of House of Cards

Production designer Steve Arnold takes AD behind the scenes of the hit Netflix series
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_DG24950.NEFPhoto: Courtesy of Netflix

Primary season is heating up, but as of 12:01 this morning, the hottest contest isn’t between Trump, Cruz, and Rubio, or Sanders and Clinton: It’s Underwood versus Dunbar. House of Cards, the show that introduced America to binge watching, returned to Netflix for its fourth season today, picking up the tight race between President Francis “Frank” Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and rival Heather Dunbar (Elizabeth Marvel). At stake is Underwood’s control of the White House, his legacy, and his marriage.

Since season one, production designer Steve Arnold has been responsible for creating the backdrop for the political drama. “The show has a very specific look and feel to it, which is something that [executive producer] David Fincher was heavily involved with in the beginning,” Arnold says. “His movies all have a certain look and spareness. The colors and spacial relationships are very controlled. It gives a solemnity and a seriousness that fit with the subject matter of the show.”

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Photo: Courtesy of Netflix
The hit Netflix show House of Cards has returned for its fourth season. The new episodes find Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) battling to remain in the Oval Office and hold on to power in Washington and his marriage. “The fourth season sort of mirrors the election campaign that we’re involved in right now. It basically follows the national conventions and all the politicking that goes up to it,” says the show’s production designer, Steve Arnold, who creates the polished spaces (and sometimes seedy backrooms) where the political drama unfolds. Arnold begins each season by studying the script. “That’s really where it starts,” he says. We start taking the script apart and analyzing new characters as well as old characters—maybe we see a little more of where they live. In the third season we saw Stamper’s apartment, and up to that point we didn’t know from which shadows he came from. We also have various directors who come through, and they may have some specific ideas.” Here President Underwood and his chief of staff, Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly), powwow in the Oval Office.

The overall aesthetic has remained consistent throughout the series, but new characters and shifting story lines bring fresh sets and locations. “Each season is a new exploration,” Arnold says. “The show has gotten bigger—more global in a way. In the third season, Frank and Claire [Robin Wright] started traveling to far-flung places like Russia.” While the characters may have jetted off to Moscow and the Middle East, production remained in the Baltimore area, where the series is filmed. Roughly half of the scenes are shot on location in the city, while the rest are built on a soundstage in nearby Joppa, Maryland. “We find iconic images and places that will fit with the show and have the gravitas and seriousness that it requires,” he says.

Season four focuses more on domestic affairs than foreign policy. “We were less global this season,” says Arnold. “It was more about traversing the country to get out the vote. That required us to do things a little differently.” But as for the sets and locations of the new episodes, Arnold isn’t giving away any spoilers. “Let’s just say we built some more of the West Wing—you’ll see it when the show comes out.”