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From lightning bolt-shaped sushi bars to extravagant Broadway sets, Emmy-winning designer David Rockwell reflects on 40 years in business
David Rockwell’s eighth-floor office overlooking Union Square in the heart of Manhattan is a fascinating space. The room, or rather the three connecting rooms that make up his private empire, are filled with objects, images, books and artwork. The mood is somewhere between thoughtfully cluttered, engrossing, and pleasingly unpretentious.
Every surface is occupied: material samples, prototypes, handwritten letters and photographs from collaborators and industry fans pinned to cork panels. There’s artwork by Rockwell’s children, and mementos currently inspiring the prolific architect and designer. The rooms are also lined with many, many awards for interiors and theatre sets.
The Primetime Emmy for his art direction of the 2010 Academy Awards ceremony, and the Tony for best scenic design for the musical She Loves Me are both there.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Rockwell Group, Rockwell’s architectural and design practice. What began in 1984 as one man with his drawing board is now a thriving studio with a team of more than 330 people working across four storeys of a historic New York building, as well as outposts in Los Angeles and Madrid. International projects include 125 world-class hotels and more than 500 restaurants, as well as homes, shops, offices and cultural centres. There’s an airport terminal in the portfolio, and stage sets for almost 100 shows on Broadway, in Chicago and in the West End.
We’re meeting to talk about the landmark anniversary and the V&A’s acquisition this year of several theatre set models, the first two of which, Kinky Boots and Hairspray, are in the newly refreshed theatre and performance galleries, which opened last month.
Rockwell, now 68, in a navy Prada shirt, black denims and trainers, is softly spoken and friendly, pausing occasionally to consider his responses. As we settle down at a small Dennis Miller table to chat, I wonder how he feels about such a milestone. “Anniversaries are arbitrary,” he muses. “But they are opportunities to take stock, which of course you can do at any time, but when you’re running full steam ahead, moments to acknowledge accomplishments, the passage of time, growth of the firm, new partners – that’s interesting.”
Rockwell’s consistent success across four decades is arguably down to his love of a good story. He believes the magic happens in the collisions at the edges of things, and he’s excited by “new people, new ideas, new materials, new artists”. A Rockwell-designed space feels immediately welcoming, beckoning you in to participate and engage. His trademark is often more a mood than a look, but always punctuated with theatrical flair and exuberance: a sweeping staircase, convivial meeting points, a choreographed pathway.
There’s warm, rich lighting, generous proportions. Bathhouse, a newly opened subterranean banya in midtown Manhattan, with thermal pools, marble hammams and treatment tables, is one example. At the Times Square Edition hotel, expanses of oak flooring make it feel like a home, if one with high-vaulted ceilings and an amber-backlit bar for a little glitz.
Le Périgord, a white-tablecloth-type French restaurant in New York (Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor dined there together in 1964), which he reimagined as a junior architect in three weeks, was a game-changer for his career: “I didn’t know enough to say that’s impossible so I worked around the clock and did it. Then I was offered a Japanese restaurant on 46th Street and I thought I’d go out on my own and do it.”
That became the much-loved 40-seater Sushi Zen, opened in 1984, which effectively launched Rockwell Group. Based in the heart of the theatre district, the restaurant’s serene, pared-back interior and a lightning bolt-shaped sushi bar made this place a New York institution.
Maintaining curiosity, Rockwell insists, is paramount: “I think the key to doing projects well is that you don’t know the answer before you begin,” he explains. “That was certainly true of The Shed,” he says of a 2019 performing arts centre with a retractable outer shell he co-created with Diller Scofidio + Renfro at Hudson Yards in midtown Manhattan.
Similarly, the monolithic Perelman Performing Arts Center, which opened in late 2023 and became the final piece of the architectural puzzle at the redeveloped site at Ground Zero. It tells a story of regeneration. Rockwell Group was responsible for the entrance space and Metropolis restaurant, which feature felted walls and timber ribs across the ceiling designed to resemble an upside-down welcome mat.
Chicago-born, New Jersey-raised, Rockwell moved with his family to Guadalajara, Mexico when he was 12. His mother, a dancer and choreographer, occasionally recruited young David into her community-theatre productions. The dramatic change of scene from the East Coast to western Mexico filled Rockwell’s senses to the brim.
He was fascinated by the energy and bustle of a daily life conducted outside, and the joy of unexpected meetings, bold colours, new smells and textures. But he went back to New York State for formal architectural studies at Syracuse University, followed by further studies at London’s Architectural Association.
His late-1970s training was mostly along strict modernist lines. “They tolerated me at Syracuse,” Rockwell admits. “I was always poking at the edge of the backstory, which they’d challenge, but ultimately they encouraged me. One of the things I say to students now who are interested in how to get ahead is reminding them to pay attention to their own eccentric edges, their idiosyncrasies. With so much digital information, you end up knowing what everyone else is doing all over the world, and that’s not necessarily good.”
Rockwell’s favourite reading material is other people’s life stories. “I devour biographies,” he says. “I recently read a series of essays by David Remnick called Holding the Note, interviews with legendary musicians, not in the early stages of their career and not at the end but somewhere in the middle, talking about how they started. I realised that part of it is that you have no fear. I didn’t have any idea that I was going to build an architecture firm – that was not on my mind. What was on my mind was that I wanted to design things, and I thought I could do that.”
By 1994 Rockwell had the first Nobu restaurant under his belt with chef Nobu Matsuhisa, with whom he still has a close relationship. He’s since created multiple editions around the world, as well as various Nobu Hotels. A new site in Bangkok opened in September. The first Rockwell-designed hotel, back in 2000, was the W New York – Union Square, another pivotal moment, working on branding as well as the design. The hotel reopens this autumn following a major redesign by Rockwell Group and now features a grand staircase that leads to a ballroom. The venue for the Oscars ceremony, the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, is another of his flamboyant, standout creations.
Rockwell’s first foray into theatre design – now a major part of the business and perhaps his greatest passion – took off a good decade after the architectural studio. “When I gave my first Ted Talk, I was told by the conference director, “Whatever you do, David, don’t just get up there and promote your work. Talk about something you’re interested in,” he explains. “So I put together a talk on the relationship between theatre and architecture. From there I started to meet with directors and began to sketch. After about five years of prodding and testing, the real aha moment for me was realising that what interests me the most was how things move: how you move from space to space and how something transforms, and I think for a director that’s really the tool they want a designer to create – they want something that transforms in front of the audience.”
Fast-forward to award-winning sets for Tootsie, Pretty Woman, Legally Blonde and The Rocky Horror Show, among many others. You see the connection with architecture immediately. The V&A’s acquisition of four theatre-set models – for On the Twentieth Century and The Nap, along with Hairspray and Kinky Boots, both of which transferred from Broadway to the West End – are a feather in his cap.
As part of the museum’s centenary celebrations, Simon Sladen, senior curator of modern and contemporary theatre and performance, was keen to include his work. “In 1922 the V&A hosted an exhibition of international theatre and set design,” Sladen explains. “Sir Cecil Harcourt-Smith, the museum’s former director, wrote about how theatre was at the apex of the applied arts and how it brings together architecture, engineering, furniture and theatre design. David absolutely exemplifies that with his theatre work. Those influences work in reverse too for him – such as when he brought in a choreographer to work with him on [an] airport terminal.”
It’s all about performance: Rockwell’s face lights up at the mention of music. He’s been a committed piano player for the past seven years – practising two hours a day. There’s a music room at the studio and another at his West Chelsea apartment within a Zaha Hadid building, where he lives with his two children – he’s divorced and has been in a long-term relationship with the actor and comedian Jane Krakowski, of 30 Rock fame.
“I spent the last year working on Rhapsody in Blue and recently performed it with an orchestra,” he says. “It was just in front of friends – I loved working with the conductor.” An off-Broadway production of Ragtime, designed by Rockwell, opens at the New York City Center at the end of this month.
“I’m also interested in doing an opera house,” he adds. “I’d really love to work on an Olympic opening ceremony.” And with that he exits stage left to see about a big Broadway musical.
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