There is hardly a more recognizable cultural icon than the Victorian house in Alfred Hitchcock’s genre-bending horror film, Psycho. Known as the Bates Mansion, it stands, along with the film’s shocking 45-second shower scene, as a symbol of a new American phenomenon, the slasher film.

Fast-forward 56 years to The Met’s seasonal installation on the roof garden, where British sculptor Cornelia Parker has created a replica of a replica of a replica called PsychoBarn. To make a long story short, it is not called PsychoHouse simply because it is fabricated out of reclaimed barn siding; what makes it a 3-way replica is that the original Psycho House, still located on the Universal Studios Hollywood lot, was based on a painting by Edward Hopper of a Victorian house in Haverstraw, New York. And the barn siding, says the artist, gives her new edition a "homely" feeling.

So how did the artist come up with this look-alike? Once again, archives to the rescue! Easily found in Bison Archives are views of the original Bates Mansion (shown here), created under the direction of production designer Robert Clatworthy, who won an Oscar for Best Art Direction. Clatworthy is quoted as saying that he used Hopper’s 1925 painting House by The Railroad as a inspiration for the mood he hoped to achieve through lighting and other cinematic devices; but the details came from a variety of sources, including scrap from a number of closed sets on the Universal lot.

Transitional Spaces (PsychoBarn) by Cornelia Parker continues at The Met’s Rooftop Garden until Halloween. Info

Bison Archives is a production and research consulting organization for motion picture and television studios, established in Los Angeles in 1971. Info

House by the Railroad, 1925, by Edward Hopper, at MoMA. Info