Art director and production designer John Box, who won four Academy Awards for the lavish, imaginative sets of movie epics like “Doctor Zhivago,” died March 7. He was 85.

Box, who worked regularly with leading British directors like “Zhivago’s” David Lean, built a reputation for re-creating settings in the most unlikely places.

He famously chose Wales to double for China in “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness,” about missionary Gladys Aylward, after the Chinese authorities objected to references in the script to the practice of foot binding.

Box built a walled city in the mountains of Snowdonia and Aylward, played by Ingrid Bergman, led her group of orphans through the Welsh hills.

“It was down to me how the hell do you make this bloody movie,” Box later recalled. “There was a huge amount of money involved with Ingrid Bergman’s salary.”

“I just had a feeling that Wales and Chinese watercolors had an affinity.”

Box won his Oscars for “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), “Doctor Zhivago” (1965), “Oliver!” (1968), and “Nicholas and Alexandra” (1971).

He also garnered three British Film Academy Awards, for “A Man for All Seasons” (1966), “The Great Gatsby” (1974), and “Rollerball” (1975).

Born in London, Box trained as an architect and served with the Royal Armoured Corps in France during World War II.

After the war, he joined the British film industry, rising from draughtsman to art director. He began to make a name for imaginative settings with the 1958 film “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” and with “Our Man in Havana” the following year. “The World of Suzie Wong” and “Lawrence of Arabia” came in 1960.

For “Dr. Zhivago,” Box re-created a Russian country house in Spain, using white plastic sheets and marble dust to represent snow.

Other memorable films include “The Cockleshell Heroes” (1955) and “Travels with My Aunt” (1972). Recent movies include “Black Beauty” in 1994 and “First Knight” in 1995, for which he built Camelot in a Welsh reservoir.