Franz Bachelin Franz Nicholas Bachelin was the Academy Award - nominated art director who oversaw the set design for " Star Trek " s first pilot , , after Pato Guzman dropped out to return to Chile . The sudden departure of Guzman in early October 1964 , left Associate Producer Byron Haskin seriously shorthanded , as Guzman ' s subordinate , Matt Jefferies , had his hands full with designing the exterior and subsequently the bridge of the new starship , leaving the design work for other production assets , such as sets and props , in the air . Haskin needed a replacement for Guzman fast . It was then that he recalled Bachelin , with whom he had worked previously , among others on the 1951 western " Silver City " . Being 68 at the time when Bachelin received the call from Haskin , Bachelin was actually already looking forward to retirement , but agreed to pitch in when Haskin promised that it only constituted merely a month ' s work and that he was home in time for the holidays , though that did not quite happen the way Haskin had led to believe . Like his friend Haskin , Bachelin has taken a dim view on the interrupting on - set antics of " Star Trek " creator Gene Roddenberry , a novice producer , during the production of " The Cage " . ( " " , 1st ed , p . 44 ) Jefferies , a practical " nuts - and - bolts " designer , approached his new superior ' s more artful designs with some skepticism , as he had admitted to decades later , " " I had to come up with the construction drawings to actually build these sets , and my problem was in trying to figure out just what the hell Bachelin had done such a pretty painting about . I mean in terms of practicality , his paintings just didn ' t work ; the construction crew would have gone out of their minds trying to build what he ' d painted . At any rate , as I had said , I was a nuts - and - bolts man , so I took his basic paintings and used them in creating all of the ship ' s specific design work . I ' m talking mainly about the bridge , the layout , the relationships between Enterprise crew members positions , the original instrumentations – all of this stuff required a massive amount of work . " " ( " Star Trek Memories " , 1994 , p . 57 ) After the pilot was produced , Bachelin , having been an outside contractor , left and did not return for either the next pilot or the eventual series when it was picked up by NBC , his place being filled by Desilu Art Director Rolland M . Brooks . However , his work was later seen in and , and he received on - screen credit for the latter episode . Career . German - born Franz Bachelin served as a fighter pilot in the imperial German air service during World War I . After having emigrated to the United States , he was from the 1930s working as art director at various Hollywood studios , conspicuously Paramount Pictures . Bachelin earned an Academy Award nomination in Best Art Direction - Set Decoration for the 1959 adaptation of Jules Verne ' s science fiction novel , " Journey to the Center of the Earth " . He shared the nomination with fellow art directors Herman A . Blumenthal and Lyle R . Wheeler and set decorators Joseph Kish and Walter M . Scott . Bachelin ' s many other art direction credits include a number of the classic " Bulldog Drummond " films of the 1930s , ' s classic 1953 comic war film " Stalag 17 " , the 1954 adventure film " The Naked Jungle " ( starring Abraham Sofaer ) , the 1955 film " The Sea Chase " ( co - starring Paul Fix ) , the 1957 drama " Band of Angels " ( featuring William Schallert ) , the 1962 fantasy " The Magic Sword " ( starring Gary Lockwood ) , and the 1965 sci - fi B - movie " Village of the Giants " . His last work was the 1966 two - part pilot for the " Batman " series , which featured TOS guest star Frank Gorshin in his Emmy Award - nominated role as The Riddler . Bachelin died in Pacific Palisades , California in 1980 . He was 84 years old and was survived by his daughter , a well - known Californian art paintress and mixed - media artist .