Guest User | Login / Register

What is WIDN

The World Interior Design Network is the leading global resource for the interior design industry brought to you by World Market Intelligence, one of the world's foremost publishers of interior design information

Find out more

Product Inspiration

Browse our interior design product showcase, one of the largest and fastest growing collections of premium interior design products on the Internet.

Find out more

Industry Research

World Market Intelligence publishes in-depth strategic intelligence reports, drawing on in-depth primary and secondary research, proprietary databases and high quality analysis from our expert teams.

Find out more

Profile: David Rockwell

Published: 17-Mar-2009

From a childhood steeped in theatre, it’s no surprise that a dash of the theatrical is now a signature for leading architect David Rockwell. From bases in New York, Milan and Dubai, he adds colour and spectacle to a wide variety of projects, including the Oscars’ stage.

Related Image

Suppliers to this sector

Long before turning his attention to architecture, David Rockwell harboured a fascination with the ‘immersive environments’ mentioned on his practice’s website.

Growing up in Chicago and the town of Deal, New Jersey, and later moving to Guadalajara in Mexico, Rockwell was a child of the theatre. His mother was a dancer and choreographer and would cast the young Rockwell in community productions. Rockwell brought his passion for theatre and an eye for the colour and spectacle of Mexico to his architecture training at Syracuse University in New York and London’s AA.

His firm of 170 staff takes on projects from hotels to hospitals, libraries to consumer products, all with a sense of fun and theatre that makes them uniquely Rockwell.

Based in New York, the firm opened an office in Madrid in 2006 for European projects and, in November 2008, launched its second satellite office in Dubai, as a focus for its expanding portfolio in Asia, India and Africa.

Theatre has become the hallmark of Rockwell’s work. He often refers to projects as ‘narratives’. As the firm’s website puts it: ‘From the big picture to the last detail, the story informs the design.’ A fascination with choreography underpins Rockwell’s work: ‘In all [of Rockwell Group’s] work there is a focus on creating environments where guests and visitors want to stay, to connect, share the moment and to return,’ he says.

Often the distinction between art and design is blurred. His Hall of Fragments, designed for the 2008 Venice Biennale, is an example. Designed in collaboration with practice Jones|Kroloff, the piece formed the entrance installation to a main exhibition entitled Out There: Architecture Beyond Building, for which architects were asked to build installations exploring the creative possibilities of architecture. Rockwell created a glowing hourglass-shaped passage in which geometric distortions of film clips were projected on to two giant convex screens. The piece explored ‘how technology can transform the way people experience films and create a constantly changing and compelling environment’, says Rockwell.

Rockwell Group is renowned for its hotels and restaurants, including designs for W Hotels, the seminal Nobu 57 in New York, and Nobu Dubai, (see p37), but the company’s portfolio is remarkably diverse.

The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, in The Bronx, incorporates a bridge made from terrazzo that ‘begins a journey towards knowledge and healing’. It leads to a glass mural of the Milky Way, inspired by the astronomical philosophy of Carl Sagan and shows the hospital’s location in the galaxy. It’s classic Rockwell theatre: bringing stars to a city where light pollution means they are seldom seen for real.

What Rockwell’s projects have in common is that they revel in the intricacies of human experience. They often shows a playful preoccupation with technology, theatre and humour, but his work is always about the ‘user’. ‘We experiment with new technology as a means to innovate, educate, and guide,’ he says. ‘It is important to have environments and objects that have natural and handcrafted elements. While people increasingly rely on technology to communicate, they still need immersive environments where all of the senses can be stimulated.’

This article was first published in FX Magazine