As founder of the Rockwell Group, an award winning, cross-disciplinary architecture and design practice, David Rockwell has designed countless visual and spatial heartstoppers ranging from restaurants, hotels, airport terminals, and hospitals, to festivals, museum exhibitions, and Broadway sets. He joins to talk about his remarkable life and upcoming projects.
Debbie Millman:
David Rockwell’s work is very theatrical, literally and figuratively. He has designed numerous Broadway and television sets and the restaurants, hotels, airport terminals, and other projects. He’s designed tend to be visual and spatial heart stoppers.
David is the founder and president of the Rockwell Group, which has offices here in New York as well as Los Angeles and Madrid. Two of his latest projects are theater related. He designed the sets for the recent revival of the Broadway show Into the Woods, and his company designed the new Civilian Hotel in Manhattan’s Theater District. He’s here to talk about those projects as well as his remarkable life and career. David Rockwell, welcome to Design Matters.
David Rockwell:
Thank you so much. Great to be here in person.
Debbie Millman:
Yes, in person. David, I understand you’re a collector of kaleidoscopes and that you started collecting them when you were a little boy. Why kaleidoscopes?
David Rockwell:
Well, I think I was initially attracted to them because I love things that move. I’ve always been fascinated by how things can reconfigure, probably driven by a life that was reconfigured a lot. I’m sure looking back, the fact that we moved around a lot as a young boy, as a young man, got me interested in new things.
And then as I started to really fall more in love with kaleidoscopes and have a chance to analyze it … and I just want to say, I think designers, in my opinion, do that a lot. They find what they love and then look in the rear view mirror and able to find how things line up and what they mean.
But my attraction was and still is, how they take things that are familiar to us and then jumble those to create entirely new pictures with the simple arrangement of lenses and objects. In the end of that frame, I think they’re the most amazing analog, changeable pictures that I still love.
Debbie Millman:
I understand you have quite a few original types of kaleidoscopes. I think you have about 75 at this point, and I read that one operates with a puff of air and feathers. Is that true?
David Rockwell:
It is true. And kaleidoscopes in many cases from the outside, don’t show how sophisticated they are on the inside because it’s a case where what is inside matters. And probably that’s some of the things that attracted me as well. Because in the building world I’m much more interested in how things engage an audience and how they behave than how they look initially, at least as a first way in.
So this particular kaleidoscope has a small plastic attribute, a fabric piece that you squeeze air into this beautiful cask glass container that has feathers in it. And you look through the kind of mirror assembly and what I do when I show it to people is have them look through it before they see what’s doing it. Because it’s a total kind of magical illusion.
Debbie Millman:
It is. It sounds amazing. David, you were born in Deal, New Jersey?
David Rockwell:
No.
Debbie Millman:
Okay.
David Rockwell:
I was actually born in Chicago, Illinois.
Debbie Millman:
Oh. My goodness.
David Rockwell:
Yeah, I was born as the youngest of five boys.
Debbie Millman:
Yes, I know that part
David Rockwell:
In downtown Chicago.
Debbie Millman:
When did you move to Deal?
David Rockwell:
When I was four.
Debbie Millman:
Okay. I think that we’ll keep that in just as is because it’s important to show that we sometimes make mistakes here at Design Matters.
David Rockwell:
It’s an interesting thing because Chicago is such a brief stay for me, but there are certain loyalties I have to that city based on family. But yeah, so we moved to the Jersey Shore quite young and that’s where I first experienced many things, including theater.
Debbie Millman:
Right. Now ,I believe that your dad passed away when you were two.
David Rockwell:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
So that was when you were in Chicago?
David Rockwell:
Correct.
Debbie Millman:
Do you have any memory of that?
David Rockwell:
No. I have photographs and I have stories from family members of a family that’s very different than the one I was brought up in because my mom remarried my dad who really raised me, my stepdad. And so as the youngest I got a very different experience than my oldest brother for instance.
But when I’ve gone back to Chicago, I’ve gone back to where we lived and done quite a bit of work in Chicago and it is one of my favorite cities. So I suppose there’s deep memories that I don’t have real access to that sort of come alive when I’m there.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. And pull you in. Your mother co-founded a community theater and you and your four older brothers all worked on the shows and you acted, played music, you worked on the sets, all four of your brothers were stage hands. You’ve said you were seduced by all the preparation and was intrigued by how the theater energized your very sleepy suburb. What was most fascinating to you about that sort of awakening?
David Rockwell:
What was most seductive was how incredibly inclusive it was, that for the time that it was happening, it activated every part of the community. And when I say sleepy it’s deal. New Jersey is a beautiful, beautiful place with lots of big homes where almost all kind of entertainment happened within these big homes. So there wasn’t a lot of public realm. There was the beach run and a beautiful beach club, but the community theater somehow got everyone to want to participate. And it was in our little elementary school, which I actually took my daughter back to not too long ago. And I couldn’t believe the difference between my memory of these incredible productions and the simplicity of what it actually was.
I think it was an early experience for me of something that I found inspiring in my work and that is the live experience of creating something like theater takes months or years of preparation. Community theater’s more months. Broadway shows can be years and buildings can be decades, but ultimately, we experience them as a live in real time experience. So it really felt like time stood still. It was amazing time with my mom. It just was a very powerful experience that was my first exposure to people coming together to create something that was ephemeral but yet had long lasting memories.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve said in several interviews that your childhood was very much like the Christopher Guest film Waiting for Guffman and I’m wondering if you can share why.
David Rockwell:
Well, it’s such an interesting question because I just met Christopher Guest.
Debbie Millman:
Lucky you.
David Rockwell:
It was incredible. I didn’t quite know what to say because I think he’s such an incredible genius and he was so smart and in the moment and present. And I think the thing about Waiting for Guffman is it makes fun of everyone in such an honest, playful way where everyone’s included in on the joke.
And my mom and Larry Lowenstein, who was the director of the Deal Players, they were intent on creating the best work. Now whether they really were quite as delusional as they are in Waiting for Guffman, and I don’t think they actually thought it was going to go to Broadway, but the dentist in town wanted to be in the show. And that’s kind of the overlap of the truth of Waiting for Guffman I think is quite beautiful. But he does it in such a hilariously funny way. So it’s that line between fiction and reality.
Debbie Millman:
Right. I can’t come away from a Christopher guest film without just feeling sort of happy about being alive just because the movies make you laugh in such a self-referential way.
David Rockwell:
Totally.
Debbie Millman:
The house that you grew up in and before you moved to Mexico had a detached garage with a second story that became your laboratory of sorts and you collected safety cones and roller blinds and wind chimes and use them to make what you’ve referred to as Rube Goldberg-like installations, Halloween haunted houses, elaborate lemonade stands. What did your family think of this?
David Rockwell:
You know, I don’t know. I think they were happy I wasn’t doing it in the house. I think they certainly encouraged it. They didn’t squash any of those instincts. By the way, it’s the same thing when I think about my experience at Syracuse University, where in many cases I was an outlier in terms of the kind of modernist program that was being taught. But I felt like I was encouraged just enough. And I was given enough lateral movement to try and craft kind of my own point of view.
I think my parents weren’t happy about it when it started to spill over into the lawn and then we had a big front lawn where the installations would continue. So I think they quite liked keeping it contained. And it was a garage with the second floor space that no one else was interested in. And I think that’s interesting, is looking for spaces that are outside of the norm. And I think that’s something I’ve continued. When I first started out as an architect in New York, almost all the spaces I had to work with were upstairs or downstairs because of the real estate reality of New York, which really created a lifelong fascination with stairs for me in architecture.
I did a small Ted Talk on stairs. I think stairs and theater are fascinating because they are the transition from one piece to another. So I think having that second floor space where I could dream and play away from worrying about making a mess was really helpful and I’m grateful I had that.
Debbie Millman:
That’s so interesting what you say about stairs because as I was looking at so much of your work, so much of it has a transition into something else, which I kind of feel like stares and landings often are. I read that some of your favorite childhood memories involve theater and hospitality and one of the most memorable was seeing a production of Boris Aronson’s musical of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway starring the great Zero Mostel, which was your first experience of a Broadway musical. What was that like for you?
David Rockwell:
It was totally life changing. The day included coming into New York with my parents and my brothers. It actually was after Zero Mostel Left and it was with Herschel Bernardi, which I’ve gone back to kind of look at what theater it was at, because it played for so long, the experience of walking through Times Square, having my first meal at a New York City restaurant, which-
Debbie Millman:
It was Schrafft’s, right?
David Rockwell:
It was Schrafft’s.
Debbie Millman:
Right. Moment of silence. Right?
David Rockwell:
So amazing. Right? And I’ve gone back to research the menu and there was something about being together with other people in these instant communities that get formed in New York, which is I think one of the great things about the city, that’s been a lifelong love of mine. And then seeing Boris Sorenson and Jerome Robbins and Sheldon Harnick and Jerome Box collaboration, telling a story I didn’t know anything about, was life changing for me to see how music and design could come together and be so powerful.
And it was something I was pretty obsessed with and researched Boris’s work, I researched Chegall’s work, and when I went to Mexico, which happened shortly thereafter, I took a lot of that experience with me and kind of dissected it. And it really has been an extraordinary gift to have that experience, including later in life becoming good friends with Boris Aronson’s widow, Lisa Aronson.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I want to ask you about that in a bit because I know there’s some interesting symmetry to that.
David Rockwell:
But yeah, even now when I go to the theater, I went to the opening of the Met Opera, Madea, which was incredible. And just when you sit down among 1500 strangers and the music begins and there’s an opportunity to connect with that story and that’s sort to connect with an audience, I think it’s just a beautiful world of possibilities. And that’s when that opened up for me.
Debbie Millman:
My first Broadway musical, my dad took me to see A Chorus Line. The original performances. The original production. And I remember being in the audience and I was a teenager, a young teenager, and remember when they were talking about tits and ass. And I was like, “Oh my God, they’re cursing. They’re cursing.” And I was so scared and embarrassed. It was such an interesting moment. I’ll never forget it.
David Rockwell:
Do you have memories about that design?
Debbie Millman:
I just remember the sort of line of the actors and actresses sort of singing when they do that long line across the stage. But that’s really pretty much it. And the costumes. And the costumes, the great, great costumes.
David Rockwell:
Yeah. I mean that was an incredibly impactful design in that it held back. Michael Bennett is one of my idols and it held back Robin Wagner’s set, which was a mirrored wall, could rotate at the end to that gold starburst that went with a costume, so it saved that big moment for the very end, but it was mostly a line on the floor, and amazingly lit. And the first Broadway show, they used a computer board for lighting.
Debbie Millman:
Oh wow. I didn’t realize that. When I saw Rent and when they open the second act with Seasons of Love, it reminded, took me back to that moment of A Chorus Line.
David Rockwell:
Yeah. Yep.
Debbie Millman:
You mentioned it already, but when you were 12, you and your family moved to Guadalajara, Mexico. Why Guadalajara?
David Rockwell:
My dad sold his business and was an avid reader and had been reading about living in Mexico. And at 12, it’s just impossible, or it was impossible for me, to understand the depth of what that change was going to be. It was a trip. We were going to move. So we got in into station wagon and drove to Guadalajara, Mexico, which was really turning my entire world inside out, in what turned out to be such an importantly great way because there were so many things about it that were fascinating and different.
And so, I think the reason was he was interested in a different quality of life and there was something about both the climate and the culture that interested him. And it was just my mom, my dad, and one brother. Three other brothers were already out of college or in college. So we just packed up and moved to a place where no one spoke English. And …
Debbie Millman:
Did you learn Spanish?
David Rockwell:
I was fluent within about four or five months.
Debbie Millman:
That’s incredible.
David Rockwell:
Yeah, at that age you just absorb it.
Debbie Millman:
Can you still speak Spanish?
David Rockwell:
I can still speak Spanish, but of course the vocabulary is weak. The accent is good. I’m good for two sentences if I plan it.
Debbie Millman:
That’s the theater in you.
David Rockwell:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
You said this about the experience and I want to read something that you wrote. “It was like entering Oz. I loved watching the drama of urban interaction, how people shaped and energized a space, the quality of the light and the tone of the sky. The street was where so much of the activity took place. I began to notice how the theater of the everyday related to actual theater and I began cobbling together an index in my mind about how people connect in activated spaces.”
David, I read that this is when you began diagramming and analyzing space and transition and modulation and interaction. At that point, did you have a sense of what you wanted to do professionally? Was this the beginning of your understanding of what you wanted to be in the future?
David Rockwell:
No, not yet. At this point, I think I still was very interested in piano and I never studied as seriously as I’m now studying, because I have that privilege now. I loved piano, I loved drawing, I loved sketching. The interest in becoming an architect evolved over the next couple of years living in Mexico where there was so much going on in the world of architecture, my exposure to these bold cast concrete buildings, the spaces in between, as I talk about in the book between the bull ring and the Mercado. And one of the great markets in the world is in Guadalajara. I think it’s 400,000 square feet and it’s a kind of modernist 60s structure. But underneath that it is the most amazing sort of minimalist maximalist installation of everything you could imagine.
Debbie Millman:
Wow.
David Rockwell:
So that’s when I started to diagram spaces between buildings. And I think it was also my interest in choreography through my mom. And I started to think about outdoor indoor spaces. All of the restaurants were indoors, outdoors. Even the configuration of the homes, there were all pretty much walled off. But most of the public life happened in the streets. Soccer happened in and around outdoor spaces. And I guess I just knew there were things about it that I thought were extraordinary and I tried to understand them spatially. And then I got to know a girl whose brother was an architect and spent some time with him. And it just emerged as an interesting intersection of the things I was most interested in learning.
Debbie Millman:
Your dad died when you were two and then your mom passed away when you were 15. How did you manage losing both your parents at such a young age?
David Rockwell:
Yeah, losing my mom was very hard. We were incredibly close, so that was pretty devastating. And I suppose maybe I’m lucky enough to have some inner drive or some optimism. There are things certainly I took from her. My love of theater is directly from her, but it was a tough couple of years and there were great friends in Mexico who helped me through it.
And I also think, as I look back on it, there was the enormous change of living in Mexico just got me on a journey of discovering things. And so, as the year or two passed, and for a year or two I was really pretty paralyzed about that, I started to think about what’s next. And I felt going back to the East coast, I felt like coming to New York, where my mom had been from, I had two brothers there, I think the importance of the moment, the importance of the time my mom and I did spend together kind of moved me in the direction of realizing how precious that time is. So that was a big part of the decision to come back east. And I went to Syracuse University, which was close enough to New York that I could come in and see my brothers on weekends and go to shows and if I liked the show, second act it the next day.
I do think of all the people in my life, my mom would’ve been the happiest and most surprised with the fact that I found a way to merge the various things that I loved. I mean, I think it’s kind of an unlikely set of things, but I think she would get that.
Debbie Millman:
I think she helped create that foundation. I think she’d be proud. You studied at the School of Architecture at Syracuse University and I understand that in your second year you got in trouble for designing a townhouse with two different entry sequences along with narratives about who lived there and why they’d made the choices they had. Why did you get in trouble for this?
David Rockwell:
Well, I think part of being in architecture school is getting in trouble. I think if you’re not provoking a reaction to get in trouble, you’re not doing the right thing. But so it was a figure ground study that was of a vertical townhouse. And the goal of the exercise was to look at how two sets of compositions, you could divide a tall, like Raymond Abram’s amazing building, take a slice and divide it into two different pieces.
I spent the first couple weeks of the project writing the backstory of the two people who would live there and what they did and why they were there. And the teacher was not pleased. The professor was not pleased. And in studio visits he would challenge that I was avoiding the process of solving it. And I’ve just always felt like backstory, it’s not better or worse, but it’s my process and it’s my studio’s process, is to try and develop a rich kind of backstory.
Debbie Millman:
To like a narrative, right?
David Rockwell:
A narrative, which in theater of course, you don’t want the narrative. The visual story doesn’t want to tell the same story as the actor wants to set the story like a jewel, a background or setting for a jewel. But having a narrative I think allows you to then suggest specifics along the way.
So it was very helpful for me and it ended up, other than the fact that I was working all night the night before and cut my finger and dripped a little blood on the white foam core, and I did have a moment thinking, how do I incorporate that into the narrative or do I just replace that piece of foam core?
Debbie Millman:
What did you do?
David Rockwell:
I replaced the foam core.
Debbie Millman:
Oh. I think you got in trouble again during your senior thesis. You went off the approved list of buildings and subjects and wrote about Times Square. I’m wondering what made you decide to do that and what you wrote about.
David Rockwell:
Well it was a long time ago. I did write about Times Square, which I had collected photographs over the years of, and what I wrote about is an outdoor room defined by information, which I actually think is a very provocative idea that has relevance in many other applications.
So I looked at the scale of the communication and how it’s different at the ground floor, at the mid level, and at the super scale. And I looked at the evolution of that communication since the beginning of electric light replacing gas. And the great Rudy Stern who passed away who wrote Let There Be Neon, was someone I became friendly with in school. I became friendly with Jules Fisher who’s one of the most extraordinary lighting designers in the world in theater.
So I networked people who I was interested in learning from and I thought, much like Learning from Las Vegas, which kind of investigated something that had previously not been investigated, I thought there was something about the enduring quality of Times Square and its constant change and its inspiration for artisan and craftsmen that was worth studying, but it was nip and talk about whether that was going to be approved.
Debbie Millman:
But I assume it was.
David Rockwell:
It was.
Debbie Millman:
After graduating from Syracuse and studying abroad at the Architectural Association in London, you worked as an intern for lighting designer Roger Morgan. And you’ve said that working for him helped you realize you could pursue and combine your passions for architecture and theater. How did he help you understand that?
David Rockwell:
My first job with Roger was actually when I was still in school in a summer internship in 78 I believe. And I got that job through a recommendation of Jules Fisher who introduced me to him. And Roger is an amazing theatrical lighting designer but also a theater consultant. So he needed architectural draftsman. So while I was there to learn about theater, he thought I was there to draw pipe details.
Debbie Millman:
Trojan Horse.
David Rockwell:
[inaudible 00:25:16] be useful. So it was an interesting contract. And he was the most amazing teacher, really just he is still is. An extraordinary man who … the show he was working on at the time was Crucifer of Blood, which was a Sherlock Holmes drama with Paxton Whitehead in Glen Close and her theatrical debut. And I was really a glorified coffee getter, but I was there to draft as well. So I had some work to do and then I went to work for him after I graduated.
I learned a lot about collaboration and it’s one of the things I talk about in the book Drama is ensemble. Because in theater you have a number of people who are very focused on one element. Go back to Fiddler on the Roof, Jerome Robbins movement with Boris Aronson design with the costumes and the lighting all created something where everyone is bringing their best game to the table.
I think collaboration and architecture can move more into I’m the architecture, the engineer, and there’s no real crossover. So I think ensemble was something I learned from Roger very clearly. Also, I think my experience there convinced me that theater was not for me for the time being. It was interesting to be a part of it. I loved being a part of it. I learned. And I just thought I want to go back and focus on architecture.
Debbie Millman:
You also worked for William Ginsburg, and William Ginsburg Associates, which is an engineering firm. That was the go-to newspaper plant designer in 1975.
David Rockwell:
You’ve done a lot of research.
Debbie Millman:
I try. And you’re so interesting. It’s easy.
David Rockwell:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
You said you knew nothing about newspaper plants but had been interested in how things moved and connected since you were a kid. How did that specific experience influence you and where you were going to go next?
David Rockwell:
Well, I mean you could look back at the interest in the Rube Goldberg-like constructions. Everything I made in that second floor in deal New Jersey was about movement. So the rollers on the floor were to sit on top of doors, which were movable stages. And that’s true about kaleidoscopes. I was always taking them apart and seeing how they work and putting them back together.
Debbie Millman:
Did you ever have failure at putting things back together? I’ve sort of stopped taking things apart cause I never can put them back together.
David Rockwell:
I’ve often had failure. Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Okay. I’m not the only one.
David Rockwell:
Then you have to make something out of the loose parts or just move on.
Debbie Millman:
Right. Pretend it’s back together and works even though it doesn’t.
David Rockwell:
Yes. Working for William Ginsburg, who was my best friend’s father, John Ginsburg, who I met first year in college. It’s one of those things when you’re an intern, when you’re starting out, there’s the thing you’re asked to do and then there’s all the things you can learn while you’re doing it.
It’s been interesting now where we have a lot of interns who work for us and I find the ones that are successful are the ones that are looking beyond what they’re just doing. They’re curious. There’s a built in curiosity. And so when it came to newspaper plants, I was kind of fascinated with the simplicity of the box of the plant because it wasn’t about what the thing looked like from the outside again, but it was about the machinery and the process and sequencing and I thought it was a kind of beautiful system of pieces that was interesting and inspiring.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve stated that when you moved to New York City, you realized that its buildings weren’t just buildings. They were collections of many different lives. Was this when you that weren’t only interested in structures and spaces, you were also interested in people and how they were impacted by structures and spaces?
David Rockwell:
I suppose that’s true. I think my interest started out on how people come together and how spaces encourage us to interact with each other. But moving to New York, the revelation you’re talking about, which was surprising and still amazes me when I leave town and come back, is the verticality of New York is really so many lives living within one structure and it puts extra, I think, importance on the public realm to be open and public. And it’s probably the thing that led me initially to be most interested in the ground floor of the city and the majority of our work early on was in and around the ground floor, which is the extension of the public realm.
Debbie Millman:
While you were working, you were offered the chance to design a house from the ground up as a freelance project, which along with a restaurant project, gave you the impetus to start your own firm in 1984. What was that like for you? Were you scared, were you nervous? Were you excited? All of the above?
David Rockwell:
There was no fear. It was just pure energy and adrenaline and luck. And actually, I was working for another architect designing a club that was a version of the Crazy Horse Saloon coming to New York. And for those who don’t know, the Crazy Horse Saloon is this very avant garde, projection based, long term historical strip show in Paris. There’s been documentary films about it, so sort of new ideas. And I was the project architect, so I went to Paris to research it. I was 23 or 24.
It opened up, The room was beautiful. The show was on a level of terrible that’s hard to describe. So you asked if I ever taken anything apart and not put it back together. So I could still today, though, sketch the carpet pattern of the SCOs wall because that was so hands on. And through that, I was offered a restaurant called Le Périgord. And actually, the person who hired us, George Briguet, who was a legend, just passed away. And it was a restaurant that had been around forever. It was getting ready for a food event and wanted to know could I renovate it in four weeks.
Since I had no fear, I brought in a friend of mine who ran the scene shop at La Mama and we renovated the restaurant in four weeks. And that led to an offer to do Sushi Zen, which was my first restaurant and this house. And so I borrowed space from a friend of mine. I had one employee. So no, I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t sensible. A little more fear might have been a good idea, but it was just all curiosity and excitement.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I started a business when I was in my 20s and I look back at that time and think … who was that person and why was I not more afraid? I think something happens when you’re in your twenties. I think you still have that sense of immortality and I can do anything. It’s only now in my 60s that I’m like, hmm. Maybe. Maybe not.
David Rockwell:
I totally agree. The way I look at that though is when you have nothing to lose …
Debbie Millman:
Right.
David Rockwell:
And I think that’s one of the things I try to replicate over and over again in our studio is taking risks. Because being safe is, I think, creatively, death. I think you have to keep reinventing and pushing.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. One of the projects that really brought you quite a lot of notoriety was the design of the restaurant Nobu in New York City in 1994. You’ve since gone on to design over 20 Nobu restaurants as well as Nobu hotels around the world. What do you attribute the success of your long term collaboration with Nobu Matsuhisa?
David Rockwell:
First of all, it is such an incredible gift. And it’s so rare, as you know, to be able to kind of iterate a vocabulary over time with … but Nobu is something I pursued. I was working for Meals on Wheels, which I’m now on the board of.
Debbie Millman:
Yes.
David Rockwell:
And I was designing an event at the Seaport called The Feast of the Many Moons. And I was on a ladder lashing moons together. I had this beautiful moonscape. And part of since I was a volunteer is I got to try all the food. We had completed Vong for Jean-Georges Vongertichten. It was the first restaurant in New York.
Debbie Millman:
I have very fond memories.
David Rockwell:
Oh, it was one of my favorite.
Debbie Millman:
Absolute favorite.
David Rockwell:
And then I tried at this Feast of the Many Moons, Nobu Matsuhisa’s rock shrimp. And so I pursued the project through Drew Nieporent, who I knew a little bit. And he introduced me to Nobu Matsuhisa and to Robert De Niro. Those were the three partners. And I interviewed with both of them.
I mean, I really think of Nobu as a kind of brother. It gave me such momentum in thinking about backstory and looking at his food and his history and trying to create something that, as he wanted to do, was a Japanese restaurant that didn’t trigger all the visual clues of a traditional Japanese restaurant. No tablecloths. That in some ways was part of reinventing luxury. Because when it opened in ’94, I think, there were no three star restaurants with no tablecloths. It wasn’t a vocabulary that people were familiar with.
I was fully in about engaging in any way with him. And I think the reason it’s endured is it was very successful and I continued to work with him, as we did other Nobus, to still work with the inspiration of what he does, but not translate it exactly the same way. And I know as a chef, that’s what he does as well. So I think there was just a real meaning in the minds and it’s something I’m incredibly grateful for.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve said that part of what gives you the ability to have the many long term client relationships you have is that you allow them to have affairs if they want. So can you elaborate?
David Rockwell:
Well, I think one of the keys to a long term relationship, and there’s so many of them that are notable in theater, how Prince and Boris Aronson, the seminal Sondheim musicals were all done together. But in my world, if Nobu is in London and is doing a hotel and wants to do it with David Collins, who’s very talented, you have to sort of tolerate it and embrace it. And if you hold on too tight, you kind of squish the energy out of a situation.
The same is true in all the building work we’re doing. We’re doing a project right now for Johns Hopkins. It’s a fantastic experience. And as they get to other buildings, if they want to talk to me about other architects who might be able to do pieces or parts of the whole building, I think that’s something that you have to learn to kind of grow that ability to not hold on too tight.
Debbie Millman:
That’s very big of you. Since the start of your business-
David Rockwell:
You haven’t asked me if it drives me crazy yet though.
Debbie Millman:
Ah. Does it drive you crazy?
David Rockwell:
Not totally.
Debbie Millman:
I’m so jealous. I really admire that you have some sensibility about allowing people to do it. I’m so territorial. Since the start of your business in 1984, and this is really now just focusing on some of the restaurant work you’ve done, I want to talk about so much more, but you become one of the most coveted restaurant designers in the world.
In addition to working with Nobu, you’ve worked with Bobby Flay, as you mentioned, Jean-Georges Vongertichten, Danny Meyer, Melba Wilson, Barry [inaudible 00:37:30], you’ve been included into the James Beard Foundations of Who’s Who. One thing that really struck me was that you said that the design of a restaurant is as important as the food. And I’m wondering if you still believe that and if you can talk a little bit about if so, why?
David Rockwell:
Well, I say that for maybe not the most obvious reasons because I think in some cases, just having come back from Rome, the restaurants we gravitated to are the ones that were designed over time, collection of artwork that’s been traded for pasta dishes. Al Moro, for instance, which is this great tavern. The design was never highlighted or, in italics, designed. But the design I think has to do with smells and senses and where is the kitchen.
Design is can the food get to the table warm? Design is when you’re sitting down, what are you looking at and who else do you see? So I do think that, in the world of restaurants, the key element is a connection between the philosophy of the design and the food. It’s like the difference between a dive and a dump because the dive got there intentionally.
Debbie Millman:
Right. Well yeah that because that was my next question. What about the dives of the world? That if they’re done well, it’s intentional.
David Rockwell:
And if there’s a point of view about food and I think about Mikhail’s and the theater district, which was a great watering hole with these classic whiskey glasses, old patina bar. And it was really about the environment fitting the mood and the food.
And there are many chefs who will totally disagree with the design is as important as the food. But it’s one of the things I also tell theater directors and restaurateurs when they say, “Well I’m not sure we need that last feature you’re suggesting.” I say, “Well let’s just think about it because what if that’s the key feature? What if it turns out that that was the key thing?” So I think taking as wide a point of view as possible and having a real conversation about it where design and operations and service really meet is when you can have a good success.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, absolutely. And in some ways, you’re preaching to the converted, because I do think that the design is as important as the food because if the design or the lack thereof impacts your experience of the food. A bad fork, a bad bathroom, those things are going to be things that kind of dilute the experience. And why would you want that?
David Rockwell:
And think about a chair. There’s chairs that are good for 45 minutes and there’s chairs that are good for two and a half hours and you want to make sure which of those your restaurant’s going to be.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. Believe it or not, before we go to any restaurant, my wife looks online to see what the chairs look like. And that is really important to her.
David Rockwell:
That’s a design fan.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. So I want to talk about the similarities and differences between designing a restaurant, a hotel, and a Broadway show. And I want to start just by talking a little bit about some of the theater work that you’ve done. When you created the sets, I believe that your first show was the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
David Rockwell:
It was.
Debbie Millman:
In 2000. Now there are different dates online that I found. One said 1989, but most of the others said 2000. So I’m going to go with 2000. And when you did that show, I understand that you had been meeting with directors for years prior, but just sketching solutions. What were you doing with the sketches and why did it take you so long to sort of decide that you wanted to do a show if you had been doing the sketches all along?
David Rockwell:
Well, I had a successful architecture studio. And I was spending more time at theater with friends of mine in the theater looking at scenery. And I’d studied that as well. I’d studied scenic design post graduating on a kind of ongoing basis. So I spoke to two people, Hal Prince, the phenomenal Hal Prince, who was encouraging and said, “Just start to sketch out what your ideas might be.”
And I knew it wasn’t going to be a quick journey because I was going from a skill set where I had kind of proven myself over time into a different skill set. I would meet with any director I could, and there were a lot of them who were interested in meeting, sketching and talking. And what started to emerge out of that was my recognition that the real opportunity that was most interesting to me in theater was transitions.
I mean, theater is one of the few art forms where things change in front of your eyes. And so the set design and the lighting designer together are kind of the cinematographer, the experience crafting where your eye goes. And I loved transitions all the way going back to the Rube Goldberg constructions and things that it interested me. So it felt like very vital territory. I would go to the theater twice a week, really, my whole life in New York.
So it took a while to. There were a couple of fall starts. I was offered a show that I started working on. That show didn’t happen. And when I met with Jordan Roth, who I knew from restaurant and hotel work, and he introduced me to Chris Ashley, who’s really an extraordinary director. He directed Come From Away, which is just closing. And they mentioned the Rocky Horror Show. Having lived in Mexico during those pop culture years, I wasn’t familiar with it. So I went home and I rented the movie.
Debbie Millman:
It’s such a great movie.
David Rockwell:
And I went back to Chris and I said, “I’m not sure what the key is to making this work on stage.” And he said, “It’s about self-creation. It’s the audience really creating this in their mind.” And it seemed like the perfect first show. And we had a couple of fall starts at different theaters, and then we went to see the Circle in the Square, which is the most non-traditional Broadway theater there is. It has no fly loft. It has very little wing space. So it required invention just to get from one place to another. And it was just the most wonderful experience ever. It was a really a loving, wonderful, great experience.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve written that architecture and theater are both defined by the people that inhabit and animate them. Without an audience enlivening its streets, its museums, its restaurants, a city is only an empty frame. And I think this has been reflected in the way the pandemic has affected public space. Everything for quite a long time was feeling very lonely. When did you get involved in making the kits for the New York City restaurants to be able to extend their spaces into the outdoors so that they wouldn’t lose their businesses?
David Rockwell:
I was editing. Actually, I was at Nobu downtown March 12th, which was a day before restaurants shut down I believe. And it was a day that they were trying to go to 50% capacity in restaurants and see if that would work. And then of course, everything shut down. And I was in the process of editing drama for [inaudible 00:44:58]. And I would look out at the city and realized we were living in a period where we got to see what a city would be like if it was all hardware.
There was none of the life of the city. And it was brutal. It was such awakening of how cities are inert without people. And it sounds obvious in retrospect, but my office immediately went to remote and Zoom, and as we were brainstorming, I started to reach out to people I’d worked with around the country in different industries to sort of brainstorm about what might be some initial thought starters that would be helpful.
Of course, restaurants had many challenges. There was no customers who were willing to be outside and you couldn’t be outside. And to have that start to change, there’d have to be a safe way to get the restaurants to want to be back in business. So four seats on the sidewalk wasn’t going to justify enough business to get them back open.
So I started to speak to a number of friends all around the country. Melba Wilson was one of them who’s a longtime friend. And we started to think about what are little ways that could start to move things in a better direction? And outdoor dining was being talked about. And it was being talked about in a way that it might work in Europe, but it won’t work in New York. And there’s so much red tape and inertia.
So someone in city planning suggested the way to be helpful would be to try and develop a strategy and a prototype. So we came up with a 40 page deck together with Melba Wilson and Andrew Rigie, who was the head of the Hospitality Alliance, speaking again to restaurateurs around the country about a very simple system that would continue to allow the streets to function, but would be an immediate way to get, at a big enough scale, restaurants back in business, outside, in a safe way.
That document made it to the city. And then we decided to make all of that open source. So everything we had drawn was made open source. And then I realized what we really needed to do was help underserved restaurants because it was immediately evident that there was going to be those who could afford it and those who couldn’t. We looked at manufacturing techniques of ways it could be made less expensively, and we actually engaged with a lot of labor from the theater world that had no work at the time. Think about those pools of labor. And we set up a non-for-profit 501C3 and worked with the hospitality lines in the city.
Our outdoor installations were all non-for-profit for originally six restaurants, at least one in each borough, and then community installations, the first one in Chinatown where 12 restaurants shared it. And it led to doing that all over the country. And it was powerful. And reigniting that relationship with Melba who’s just extraordinary and a real true New Yorker.
Debbie Millman:
As you are. Thank you so much for doing that. It has really helped bring the city back in ways that I don’t think anybody ever expected. It’s only been two years and the city is, once again, I think it’s different, but it’s its vibrant spirit itself.
David Rockwell:
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think every moment leads with a different opportunity. I think the opportunity now is to figure out, well, you can have these semi-permanent structures everywhere, which is what people have done. They’ve sort of pushed the boundary way to the other end, and it’s going to require the city coming up with ways to actually engage zoning and legislation and safety concerns and deal with the fact that we’re not in crisis. But there’s something wonderful about that opportunity and I think that’s the next challenge.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, I do. I think for now I sort of feel like let them make back some of that extra money with those extra tables that they can fill. But yeah, I think eventually some sort of format for doing this would be helpful.
David Rockwell:
I know this is something you think about a lot, but it’s also design of those things that you don’t ever think needs design.
Debbie Millman:
Yes.
David Rockwell:
So DOT approached us about when they do open streets, they do it with these not very attractive barricades that look like barricades. And we created something for them called stoops, which takes the place of those barricades, but when it’s open, becomes a place to sit. So I think we were talking earlier before the interview about what is design. It’s kind of making the world more understandable and more pleasurable and functional and taking those things that you think maybe aren’t designed in realizing someone needs to design them.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, absolutely. After the success of the Rocky Horror Picture show back in 2000, that led to your appointment for the Broadway production of Hairspray two years later.
David Rockwell:
Oh my God. Can you imagine that?
Debbie Millman:
No.
David Rockwell:
Hairspray, the musical with John Waters.
Debbie Millman:
Yep. Incredible. It was incredible. You won the 2016 Tony Award for best scenic design for the musical She Loves Me. You have an additional six Tony Award nominations for Best Scenic Design. You have two Emmy Awards for production design for the Oscars in 2021, in 2010. You’ve worked on, I counted it up about 70 theatrical productions including designing sets for Kinky Boots. Amazing. Legally Blonde, amazing. A Normal Heart. Heartbreaking.
At this moment in time, I believe you have designed three shows that are either on or coming to Broadway. When you begin working on a new theatrical production, how does designing for an already existing story inform your work?
David Rockwell:
Well, there’s different ways it could in inform the work. One way in the case Into the Woods that we recently did, it just meant I was familiar with the material. I wasn’t so familiar with previous physical designs and I didn’t think I needed to. And there were so many specifics about the experience that was designed for encores, which was going to be a two week run, Stephen Sondheim had just passed away. Lear DeBessonet wanted to create this beautiful, and she put it, kind of optimistic, but still having a sense of loss for [inaudible 00:51:34].
And that was lots of research. What looks like a very simple set of 16 dimensional trees with cutouts with those three houses that are there before was weeks and weeks of research of lots of different approaches to synthesize down of the few things we could do. Given that it was encore, it’s what would we do that really set the stage.
There’s other previous productions when we did on the 20th century, had seen Robin Wagner’s original Tony Award-winning production, that was a case where I thought meeting with him and talking to him was helpful, which I did. Or a new project in the case of Take Me Out, which had been done 20 years ago, Scott Ellis and Richard Greenberg, the playwright, were very much interested in a new look at it. And so I just started from what they wanted to do and that’s the way we approach everything. It’s always trying to find a kind of unique narrative that evolves, that has surprise, that helps illuminate the powerful part of the story.
Debbie Millman:
I just saw Into the Woods. And I have seen Into the Woods before. I actually saw Into the Woods in 2012 when the production was put on Central Park. And I didn’t think a set could possibly surpass being in the woods to see Into the Woods. And yet it did. It is an extraordinary play. I mean, everything about it. The acting, the directing, the music, and of course the sets.
The limited run of the production in New York last year was moved to Broadway where it’s been playing to sold out houses every night. The show was also officially extended twice now through the end of the year, through January. And the show was often considered Stephen Sondheim’s most popular musical. And its original run on Broadway began in 1987. It was also taped for PBS. It was revived once before on Broadway in 2002, Central Park in 2012, performed in community theaters and schools all over the world. It was even turned into a Disney film starring Meryl Streep. When you’re working on a revival, how much do you consider previous productions?
David Rockwell:
I try to start fresh, but I don’t deny the fact when I’ve seen something in the past, there might be something you learn. But I don’t research previous productions and I don’t try and pretend I haven’t seen them. Now Into the woods, there was so much fertile territory, including the orchestra being on stage.
Debbie Millman:
That was my next question.
David Rockwell:
And we thought that surrounding the orchestra with those playing areas would make the music even more of the story than if they were just front and center without those surrounding platforms. With a musical, you start with research and the research is on the music, the period, the narrative. And then from all that, you have to put that aside and conjure some original vision that is going to kind of bring all that together.
Debbie Millman:
What’s so interesting about your sets is that they are in the play. The main character, or one of the main characters, the cow. The cow is so integrated into the play that I wasn’t entirely sure if the cow was a construction of the set or if the cow was a construction of the choreographer or a cow was a construction of the director.
David Rockwell:
So James Ortiz, the amazing puppeteer who designed Milky White, in early meetings with Lear as a director, she brought us all together so that everyone would be working from the same kind of pool of ideas. So the skeleton simplicity of the trees certainly is totally visible in James’ work for Milky White. But then even extended more with the actor playing Milky White, a Kennedy who everyone is inhabiting the same thing. It’s not so dissimilar from what we were talking about with restaurants, that if food and service and design come from the same point of view, you get the sense of an underlying intelligence and a kind of comfort that there’s a guiding point of view.
Debbie Millman:
But it was so integrated. The only time I’ve ever felt that there was this type of successful integration of a character that was an animal, so to speak, into a play with humans was Lion King.
David Rockwell:
Totally.
Debbie Millman:
And this reminded me of that. The integration felt so seamless and so real that the character is brought to life in a way that was, I thought, really remarkable. I loved Milky White. I thought Milky White was outstanding.
David Rockwell:
Milky White’s a-
Debbie Millman:
And never utters a word.
David Rockwell:
… total star.
Debbie Millman:
Yep. David, the last project I want to talk to you with you about brings together three of your passions, theater design, restaurant design and hotel design. And you recently created, designed, and just opened Civilian, a brand new 203 room hotel in the theater district. And it’s been described this way. An homage to the uniquely Manhattan experience of great theater and design can only be found in the breathtaking fantasy of David Rockwell’s New York. It’s a distinctly theatrical hotel, one that demonstrates a love for the stage and a celebration of the energy history and future of Broadway as nothing in New York has ever done. How’s that for review?
David Rockwell:
I think that’s a mic drop right there.
Debbie Millman:
Right? Congratulations.
David Rockwell:
Thank you.
Debbie Millman:
Now, I believe that this is the first project of this type, of this magnitude that you have done, where you’ve really looked at every single aspect, brought it all together.
David Rockwell:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Can you talk a little bit about what motivated you to create an entire hotel?
David Rockwell:
What I can tell you is, and I don’t know if this is true in your work or your observations, but I really believe in long thoughts. I think things don’t happen quickly. So I’ve been thinking for 15 or 20 years about how there’s no center to the theater community that kind of honors all the people that make it and make its own credible.
Even though in the book drama I talk about the importance of ephemeral and impermanence is a design strategy, recognizing things aren’t necessarily permanent, the world of design in theater is, it happens during the show and then is gone. So I’d been thinking for a long time about restaurants that are kind of watering holes, that welcome people in the theater district, and creating a center there. And most things, this was an opportunity that came along that was a different opportunity. The builder was building this hotel on 48th Street, just west of … it was a small parking lot.
And they came to me saying, “We’re wondering what kind of hotel this should be.” And I said, “Well, if you want me involved, I think it shouldn’t be defined by being a Marriott or a Moxy or a lot of great brands.” W, all hotels we’ve worked for. But something that is really about its own place and that honors what makes this neighborhood with these 41 amazing theaters totally unique.
And they went for it. They said, “Great.” So that got me motivated to reach out to many other theater makers and get them excited about it. Find a non-for-profit partner. And in this case, it’s the American Theater Wing, which is kind of the biggest tent of the theater world. It includes everyone. And it’s been just so inspiring to see, first of all, how designers want to participate.
The hotel has about a 350 piece collection called the Olio Collection that is constantly rotating and that includes commission pieces in spaces you’d never expect to see artwork. The elevator, the back bar, the rooms, the corridors. The restaurant and the Rooftop bar are opening, I believe the middle of October. They haven’t opened jet.
Debbie Millman:
I know.
David Rockwell:
So it’s just amazing. It’s been one of the greatest joys of my life to bring together these three passions and to do it in a way that kind of celebrates people who are not normally celebrated and have it be ever-changing. It’s like what I tried to accomplish on the second floor of my garage in Deal, but in a beautifully New York way with amazing creators and collaborators.
Debbie Millman:
Civilian is now host to a curated collection of Broadway memorabilia, drawings, and photography, including the original polo shirt and cast from Dear Evan Hansen a pair of red boots from Kinky Boots …
David Rockwell:
They’re staying.
Debbie Millman:
… perfume models from She Loves Me, shoes from A Kiss of the Spider Woman-
David Rockwell:
From Chitah Rivera.
Debbie Millman:
Oh wow. This is the one that’s going to make me get goosebumps, just saying it out loud. Elphaba’s hat from Wicked. Ah.
David Rockwell:
Amazing.
Debbie Millman:
Dueling pistols from Hamilton-
David Rockwell:
From the first.
Debbie Millman:
Original. The Off-Broadway.
David Rockwell:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
I believe that some of the memorabilia is in the blue room, is that correct?
David Rockwell:
Yeah. Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Where you used your favorite blue, which is a deep purple-ish hue called Urban Blue, named for the architect and set designer Joseph Urban. So what makes that your favorite?
David Rockwell:
I think the depth of the color. It feels infinite. It feels both incredibly rich and present and like it just goes on forever. And it is my favorite color. I like many different blues. [inaudible 01:01:31]
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, I was wondering about Yves Klein Blue. That felt like it would be a blue you might like too. Just a couple more questions. Wondering if you can talk about the sketches that will be featured of the 41 theaters that make up the Broadway universe.
David Rockwell:
Thank you for asking. So when I first really got on to doing the Hotel Civilian, there were a number of people I knew needed to be represented and one was Tony Walton, who was really one of the truly greats. Passed away this year. And he’s not only been one of the great designers, but one of the great people and supporters of the theater community.
So I went to him and I said, “I’m doing this crazy thing.” And he said, “Well, I don’t know if this is helpful, but I have 12 drawings that I did Broadway theaters from decades ago that I did for playbill. Let me send those over.” And they were these gesture sketches that perfectly, in each case, I thought captured what was special about that theater. And of the 41 Broadway theaters, I’ve worked in 20 of them and had a chance to renovate one of them, the Hayes Theater.
So I loved the idea that he had taken in what was special about each. And I asked if he would complete the collection to have 41. And he said he would love to do that, but just didn’t have the brain space to do that. And we sort of brainstormed about it. And then I reached out to every designer I knew and they would pick the theater that was most personal to them and do a drawing of them. And those sketches are etched into one foot diameter glass panels with a bronze surround into the light fixtures. So the very fabric of the restaurant is dotted with these 41 backlit fixtures that celebrates why this couldn’t happen anywhere else in the world.
Debbie Millman:
Wow, that’s incredible. I know that you said lighting is the thing that most hotels get wrong. How did you approach that idea in thinking about this particular kind of lighting?
David Rockwell:
Well, I am obsessed about lighting. And so one of the things that drives me crazy is bad lighting and eating in some of the great little pasta places in Rome where lighting is totally not important.
Debbie Millman:
Right. [inaudible 01:03:45] use [inaudible 01:03:47] phone [inaudible 01:03:47] can you believe how many people use their phones now to look at menus? It drives me crazy.
David Rockwell:
So what we tried to do at a civilian relative lighting is start with the most critical of lighting problems, and that is lying in bed trying to read and turn the light off from the bed stand. And it’s amazing how many designers get that wrong. The light isn’t bright enough to read and you can’t turn it off. So we started with the rooms and then went to the corridors, which are lined with beautiful custom wallpaper by Isabelle and Ruben Toledo, Paul Tazewell and William Ivey long. Isabelle’s Dream was to design a Broadway show.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, well thank you for bringing her that.
David Rockwell:
My pleasure. She [inaudible 01:04:30].
Debbie Millman:
What a loss.
David Rockwell:
Yeah. So in the case of the hall, we lit the photographs in the wallpaper. So I think the key to not having bad lighting is not the thinking of lighting is some independent alien thing, but understand what the object of the lighting is. So it all dims, including the kitchen, and we were able to make it just so. But I am crazy about lighting.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve stated that you’d like to design an opera house that doesn’t hide so much of what it takes to stage an opera.
David Rockwell:
Right.
Debbie Millman:
And you’d like to design an Olympics opening ceremony.
David Rockwell:
Right.
Debbie Millman:
Do you have any sense of what you might design for either?
David Rockwell:
Well, I can tell you the opera house note is based on whenever I’m with non-theater people, architects in a theater, the favorite view is what it looks like from the stage looking out, the potential of that. And of course, opera houses have this huge machinery backstage and I would just be interested in … it just has so many things that I love. There’s this ceremony of how to get to the seats. There’s the embrace of the house, there’s the ritual of the show. So hopefully someday I’ll get a chance to work on that particular scale.
And opening ceremonies, I didn’t have a dream to design the Academy Awards. I had done the theater in 2002 as an architect and was lucky enough to get a call from Bill Conden, who’s an extraordinary filmmaker and artist, asking about doing the Oscars in 2009. It was a chance to have a full circle experience of designing the building and then working in the building. So I think for Opening Ceremonies, it’s so much about embracing a city and how it unfolds and working with a director and a cinematographer. And I think it would be fun to do that in a totally unique, different way.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. Ugh, I love to see you do that. David Rockwell, thank you so much for making so much work that matters. Thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.
David Rockwell:
Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.
Debbie Millman:
David Rockwell’s work can be seen on Broadway Into the Woods and about to be seen in Take Me Out and A Beautiful Noise. You can experience all aspects of his work at the Civilian Hotel in New York City, read about his work and his most recent book Drama published by Phaidon, and you can read all about nearly everything he’s done at rockwellgroup.com.
This is the 18th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference. We can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Melvin and I look forward to talking with you again soon.