Hospitality Design - August 2019 - 92

brand builders

CallisonRTKL crafted the wellness-focused
Hilton Miami Dadeland with local influences

An undulating light fixture hangs in the lobby
atrium at the Conrad Washington, DC, designed
by Herzog & de Meuron, HKS, and Rottet Studio

the company in 2009 as senior vice president of
global design, he's overseen brand launches and
refreshes that have transformed Hilton into a
global powerhouse in nearly every segment.
From an early age, Traxler had a knack
for drawing and was encouraged by his highschool art teacher to apply to the University of
Cincinnati's renowned architecture program. It
was six years of 24/7 architecture immersion.
"A lot of students called it archi-torture," Traxler
says. But he was a natural. His father was a
mason, and "taught me how to repair a chimney
when I was 12," he says. "I was always working
with my hands growing up."
After graduating in 1990, Traxler moved to
Chicago in the midst of a downturn when no
one was hiring. A chance meeting with Jordan
Mozer at the River Shannon, where Traxler
was bartending, led to a seven-year stint with
the designer. The duo would spend their days

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August 2019 hospitalitydesign.com

HBA infused the Sound Hotel Seattle Belltown with a
classic Pacific Northwest color and material palette

at bronze foundries and glassblowing studios,
devoting as much time with artisans as they did
to drawing. "It was my first experience working
with storytelling before diving into design,"
he explains.
From there, Traxler's career took him to
Singapore with HBA (where he fell in love
with hospitality), New York with Ian Schrager
(working with Philippe Starck, the Clift in San
Francisco taught him how to think outside
the confines of traditional hotel design), and
Beverly Hills, California with Wilson Associates
(leveraging the firm's global appeal from offices in
Dallas, Singapore, and New York).
It was with Hyatt where he got his first taste
of the other side of the business. "What thrilled
me about joining the brand side is the fact that
we had some control," he says. Traxler could set
the tone of the design and assemble the players,
but was still able to "conduct the music," he
explains. While there, he helped develop the

Andaz brand, which set out to "dust the cobwebs
off what the industry had become," he says, by
controversially getting rid of the front desk to
cultivate organic social interactions in the hotel's
public spaces. Working alongside both Tony Chi
on the Fifth Avenue location and David Rockwell
on Wall Street, Traxler saw how a brand could
be envisioned through two very distinct design
lenses. Chi was unforgiving in respect to his
design style, while Rockwell incorporated the
theatricality that has now become the firm's
hallmark.
After four years, Traxler left Hyatt for Hilton,
where he's been for the past decade. At the time,
the company had nine brands to its name with
very siloed departments. Traxler went on a world
tour, as he calls it, to assess what was working and
what wasn't. He helped to re-establish the core of
each brand by reorganizing the business, shifting
focus, and crafting swim lanes and individual
mission statements.

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Hospitality Design - August 2019

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