In the theater world, there’s a saying that no one leaves a show humming the scenery. While it’s true that great performances usually take precedence over set design, the latter can still have a profound impact on an audience’s imagination and experience, whether they are conscious of it or not. The same is true for the look and layout of a restaurant, which is itself a stage for a different type of performance. No one knows restaurant design better than David Rockwell, one of the most famous architects and designers in the world, as well as a set designer for more than 100 theatrical productions, both on and off Broadway. Rockwell Group, the New York City–headquartered firm that he founded, just celebrated its 40th anniversary last year.
The child of a vaudeville dancer and choreographer, Rockwell’s passion for the theater comes through in his work, whether he’s creating a set, restaurant, hotel, playground or even a hospital. He strikes a thoughtful balance between the various elements, be they background players or the stars of the scene, and the Rockwell Group’s roster of restaurant projects reads like a who’s who of the culinary world, including chef Nobu Matsuhisa’s Nobu restaurants and hotels; Danny Meyer’s Union Square Cafe; the NYC outpost of chef José Andrés’ Zaytinya; and chef Daniel Boulud’s new steakhouse, La Tête d’Or, which opened late last year. In fact, Rockwell himself has been inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America.”
The Interview, Part One
In this two-part discussion, Rockwell reflects on his extensive career and speaks to the many considerations that go into designing a restaurant. (The interview was conducted in June, at Rockwell Group headquarters in Union Square, and has been edited for length and flow.)
When you’re creating a restaurant, do you want diners to be aware of the design?
Almost all the work we do involves an audience and some live experience, but while the net result might be creating a place that’s super memorable, we don’t start out by thinking about the design being noticed. We spend a lot of time speaking to the chef and the operator about what they want, and the space also dictates a lot. But if you think about restaurants you’ve been in that make an impact, there are certain things that stick with you. What is the first view? How are you invited in? How does it welcome you?
As I think about all of our recent restaurants and what people find memorable about them—Din Tai Fung, The Corner Store, La Tête d’Or, COQODAQ, or The View—they’re totally different, but they are all very choreographed. And they are all a sequence of spaces that, even within very big spaces, focus on what the experience is like at the table.
Regarding choreography, do you work with owners and chefs to determine how you want people to flow through the room?
Exactly right—how the views unfold as you move through the space.
How granular do you get? During my first visit to La Tête d’Or, for example, I remember noticing the curious font on the restaurant sign.
The really best clients come in with lots of ideas, but not what they want it to look like. So, in the case of La Tête d’Or, [chef]
Daniel [Boulud] had this ambition to create something that was kind of a grand New York steakhouse but with a French influence, which led to a more refined vocabulary, and that led to wanting to elevate the cooking to be on display. So I think you have to figure out what’s the core narrative and choreography.
Something as simple as chairs and banquettes—those are really the backbone of a restaurant. How do you sit there? How are you aggregated in groups? If we do our job right, we have a point of view that is strong enough that design decisions aren’t arbitrary.
You mentioned the way a space welcomes you, but you also look at how folks feel once they’re already ensconced in the room. Obviously, I have not been to every place you’ve ever designed, but for me, a signature of your projects is the way they are lit. At La Tête d’Or. I remember thinking, “I feel sexy here. The lighting makes me feel good about myself.”
We’re working on a new book about hospitality, so I’ve been thinking about the source of ideas. In terms of lighting, when I was 12, we moved from the Jersey Shore to Guadalajara, Mexico, and that was such a significant thing for me in terms of light and color temperature and the way light feels. So I’ve always had this heightened sensitivity about light.
Then I worked as an assistant lighting designer on Broadway—I had taken some time off from architecture school—and I had a revelation. There was a moment during rehearsal, where one light just pierced a round window and landed on the center of the stage, and it was the first time I realized that light is like the cinematographer of spaces. It tells you where to look.
So I started to think about that in restaurants. Lighting has so many different jobs. It creates the way things feel. It’s the thing that wakes up the eye. Contrast is very important in lighting. There’s a reason why candles are a primal source that brings everyone together.
So, in essence, you’re also a director.
In theater design, there is no cinematographer, so it’s the lighting designer and the set designer that are figuring out how big the picture is. If you want to do a close-up in the theater, you have to do that with set and lighting.
There are also elements that people tend to notice only when things go wrong, like if a restaurant is too noisy.
If you come out of a show and say, “Boy, the sets were amazing,” that’s not necessarily the first thing you want to remember, and that’s probably true about a restaurant as well. So I think physical things do tend to stand out if they’re discordant, but every restaurant has a different rhythm, and every restaurateur is interested in a different level of quiet or noisy.
A while ago, there was a feeling that restaurants were noisy on purpose; we don’t create noisy restaurants on purpose. But the other extreme is that I don’t think people want a restaurant where you don’t hear the clink of New York in the background.
Right. You’re there for the communal nature of the experience.
The same is true about seating. There’s a very different kind of strategy when you’re creating a restaurant where people are going to spend two-and-a-half hours eating dinner than a place like Din Tai Fung that has a one-hour turnover. The chairs are more vertical. The tables are hard surfaces.
How involved are you in designing the back of the house—the kitchen space—and how it flows?
There’s always a kitchen consultant we work with who deals with the layout of the equipment, but we’re very involved in the flow and the circulation. For the first Nobu, what [chef] Nobu [Matsuhisa] was most interested in was the sushi bar, but the sushi bar links to the kitchen, because some of the food is begun in the kitchen and finished at the sushi bar and vice versa. So both the bar and the kitchen were involved in the laying out of the space.
Your work has spanned so many different areas—restaurants, theater design, playgrounds, hospitals. How do you keep your creative process fresh?
I’m always out looking at things. I get a lot of inspiration from travel, and I see a lot of theater. I’m a Tony voter, so that means I’m going to at least 40 shows a year. I also eat out a lot. I’m always trying to ask why, digging deep and staying curious.
[Check back here in a few days for the second half of this interview, including a look at some of Rockwell’s upcoming projects.]