The Knick Set Design and the Pursuit of Historical Accuracy in Soderbergh's NYC Drama

Image credit: Architectural Digest / The Knick. Fair use.

Steven Soderbergh's medical drama, The Knick, takes viewers into the harrowing world of the fictional Knickerbocker Hospital in early 1900s Manhattan. The series follows medical innovator Dr. John W. “Thack” Thackery (Clive Owen) and his staff as they navigate rudimentary medical practices, societal stratification, and personal demons, including Dr. Thackery's own struggle with addiction, often witnessed in a Chinatown opium den. The show has captivated audiences not only for its depiction of antiquated ailments and surgical procedures, but also for its irresistibly edgy sets and cool riff on the Victorian era.

The commitment of Soderbergh, who served as director, cinematographer, editor, and showrunner, along with his production crew, was to meticulously recreate New York City at the turn of the last century. This dedication required tremendous research and careful attention to detail, transforming sets and locations into dreamlike historical recreations. The journey behind the scenes reveals an intricate process involving historical consultants, costume designers, and production designers, all focused on achieving an unparalleled level of historical accuracy.

Content ⁉️

1️⃣ The Vision of Steven Soderbergh and the Aesthetic Palette

2️⃣ Mastering Historical Accuracy: Medicine and Wardrobe

3️⃣ The Knickerbocker Hospital: Architecture and Detail

4️⃣ Rewinding Manhattan: Location Filming and Street Kits

🔖 Key Takeaways

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Image credit: Vulture / The Knick. Fair use.

The Vision of Steven Soderbergh and the Aesthetic Palette

Steven Soderbergh gave his production team, led by production designer Howard Cummings and set decorator Regina Graves, a definitive aesthetic direction early on: “If I could have made this in black and white, I would have, but nobody would fund that”. This challenge became an opportunity for Cummings and Graves, who built the hospital interiors from the ground up, limiting the palette primarily to black, white, four shades of gray, and dark wood. This deliberate choice defined the atmosphere of the hospital, which, aside from the "regular shock of crimson blood," was cast in an almost exclusively black and white palette.

The designers noted that while the show is set in the Victorian era, Soderbergh did not want it to feel "stuffy," "granny," or "old and heavy". The resulting aesthetic was period-accurate but infused with a modern flair. The creative team succeeded in producing an unsettling feel transmitted not just through music and tone, but also through the set color schemes. Viewers are taken through various dramatically contrasted environments, including the hospital, the impoverished Lower East Side tenement houses, the lavish homes of the wealthy, and the red glow of the opium den.

The Art of Practical Lighting

One key element of the show's unique visual style is Soderbergh’s choice to use a handheld RED camera, which is highly light-sensitive, and film using only practical light sources. Because of this, all the interiors had to be lit with fixtures designed to be historically accurate. The team manufactured these fixtures, understanding that the electrification of the hospital was itself a major plot point in Season 1. They discovered that the early, inefficient bulbs produced a yellower and warmer light than the gas lighting the hospital utilized.

This emphasis on realistic lighting, utilizing Edison-style lightbulbs, often created a warm yet ominous glow on the sets. Furthermore, because the entire hospital set—including the ceilings—was constructed, all the hospital rooms interconnected. This seamless connection allowed the handheld camera to follow the action fluidly from one room to the next, contributing to a certain sense of reality. The sets, while detailed, were designed with more realistic dimensions because huge camera equipment was not following Soderbergh. The resulting labyrinth of darkened set pieces at times felt like "the cleanest haunted house in the world," with various hospital rooms actually appearing capable of admitting patients.

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Mastering Historical Accuracy: Medicine and Wardrobe

A crucial component in grounding the series in historical accuracy was the expertise provided by medical adviser Dr. Stanley Burns. An NYC ophthalmologist and the head of The Burns Archive—home to the world's largest collection of early medical photographs—Dr. Burns was brought in by Soderbergh to leverage his experience as a surgeon and historian. Burns's role ensured that every procedure and conversation was historically accurate, confirming that "each stitch is sewn and line of jargon fits the 1900s". His incredible depth of knowledge and amazing trove of materials provided ample inspiration for the plot possibilities.

The show’s dedication extended beyond the medical dialogue and procedures to the physical props and costumes. The prop department acquired actual medical equipment from the 1900s, either purchased or donated to the show, to capture the time period authentically.

The wardrobe was overseen by costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, who managed a literal warehouse of historical pieces. Her collection included garments from the Gilded Age, such as corsets, bowler hats, ball gowns, and medical robes. Mirojnick interpreted the show’s unsettling tone subtly through each character’s dress. The production team saw close-up pieces that helped create the show’s amazing characters, such as the beaver fur bowler of Dr. Thackery, the top hat of Dr. Chickering, and the wedding dress of Cornelia Robertson.

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Image credit: Business Insider / The Knick. Fair use.

The Knickerbocker Hospital: Architecture and Detail

The hospital itself was the heart of the drama. The initial scouting for the Knickerbocker Hospital led the team to an old boys’ high school in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, which was a Victorian building featuring Romanesque architecture, embellished turrets, and amazing brickwork. This archaic building became the structural inspiration for the set.

The meticulous detail required extensive referencing of historical documents. The production team utilized full reports, complete with ground plans and photographs, from a Presbyterian hospital on the Upper East Side. Based on these plans, the production team built all the wards and beds, relying on their historical medical adviser for verification on layouts, such as the location of the sterilizing station.

The resulting sets were incredibly detailed, allowing visitors to walk through the operating room, Dr. Thackery’s office, the wards, the medicine room, and the hospital lobby. The notorious operating theater was designed to feel like a small classroom. The attention given to every piece of furniture, paper, and medical equipment left visitors astonished at the amount of research involved.

Beyond Granny: Victorian Style with a Modern Flair

Set decorator Regina Graves sourced many furnishings and textiles through prop houses, supplemented by trips to antique shops and places like Brimfield, Massachusetts, and the D&D Building in New York for fabrics and wallpapers. To prevent the rooms from feeling too "period," the team deliberately used colors, choices, and styles for fabrics and wallpapers that felt very modern.

While much of the furniture was authentic Victorian, the modern textiles and papers were intended to keep the look fresh, lending the interiors a "sexiness and a lightness". However, not every historical detail could be sourced perfectly. For a large party scene in Season 2, when rented ballroom chairs arrived in gold molded plastic instead of the expected old-fashioned wood, the team had to use them anyway, hoping Soderbergh wouldn't realize they were plastic. The commitment to set creation involved significant custom work; for instance, Graves commissioned George and Martha in Brooklyn to build eight Victorian waiting-room benches with turned legs and carved backs in just nine days. The lighting fixtures, which were crucial due to Soderbergh's practical lighting mandate, were also manufactured by several different companies.

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Image credit: MundoDVD / The Knick. Fair use.

Rewinding Manhattan: Location Filming and Street Kits

While the production featured giant, detailed sets, nearly half of Season 1 was shot on location, with an even greater percentage in Season 2. The series utilized locations across New York, even extending to Yonkers and Staten Island, and Long Island, including recreating San Francisco’s Chinatown in Yonkers.

The immense challenge of recreating early-20th-century Manhattan on modern streets like Broome and Orchard required the team to accept that they couldn't change everything. Production designer Howard Cummings found that transforming the texture of the street was vital, primarily by adding dirt to the roads. This seemingly simple step required logistical juggling, including scheduling drainage cover for environmental reasons and arranging dirt removal for traffic.

To minimize disruption to local businesses, the crew would install a façade in front of buildings, allowing patrons to still walk in while filming proceeded. By Season 2, the team developed a “giant street kit,” using pre-made façades for quick transformations one or two days ahead of filming. Sometimes, existing modern locations were close enough to the desired aesthetic, such as Cafe Moto in Williamsburg, a bar with a "naked lightbulbs with pseudo-Victorian interiors" look, which required only minor edits before serving as the bar where Dr. Algernon (Andre Holland) frequented.

The interiors and their edginess perfectly mirrored the show's themes. The turn of the century depicted in The Knick was a harsh and brutal world where everyone pursued their own agenda, a feeling which the sets successfully communicated.

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🔖 Key Takeaways

The success of The Knick lies significantly in its unparalleled commitment to historical accuracy and detailed set design.

🗝️ Aesthetic Control: Soderbergh’s vision mandated a limited palette of blacks, whites, and grays, combined with unique practical lighting (Edison-style bulbs) to create an edgy, modern Victorian feel.

🗝️ Medical Integrity: The series relied on Dr. Stanley Burns and The Burns Archive to ensure that all medical practices, jargon, and props were authentic to the 1900s.

🗝️ Meticulous Construction: The core hospital set was built from historical blueprints and architectural references, with sets interconnected to allow continuous, fluid handheld camera work.

🗝️ Location Transformation: Shooting on location in modern NYC required the crew to use façades and street kits to physically rewind streets back a century, demonstrating the logistical complexity of the production.

Creating the immersive environment of The Knick was less like building a traditional movie set and more like curating a living museum exhibit. Every element, from the light bulbs to the antique furniture, served as a period artifact that anchored the raw, brutal reality of the 1900s medical world, ensuring that the fictional Knickerbocker Hospital felt terrifyingly real.

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🌐 External sources

Checked In: On the set of ‘The Knick’

Behind the Scenes on the NYC Set of The Knick, Steven Soderbergh’s Medical Series Set in the 1900s

An Inside Look at Set Design on The Knick

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Keywords: The Knick set design

The Knick set design

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