Hospitality Design - October 2011 - 26

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transformation

It is no great revelation that the taste of individuals is subject to constant evolution. Since the days of Darwin’s world-changing epiphany, adaptation and growth have long been regarded underlying principles of nature. And in the world of design, the pace of transformation has been highly charged and accelerated by the range of tech-powered tools that respond to our needs with lightspeed precision. We expect spaces and objects to perform multiple roles, intimately responding to our ﬂuctuations in taste and preferences for increasing convenience. Photo by Jeffrey Mosier And while it may be tempting to think of grand hotels and intimate restaurants as immutable physical spaces, hospitality environments are no exception to this growing trend of communicative design. A space that can always surprise you, that can ﬁt your needs as they change—that is the kind of space that will stay with you. And to get to timeless, these spaces have to start with the timely: One has to ﬁnd out what resonates with people today. In this issue, we’ve brought together a range of creators with different perspectives and asked them to help us think about transformation and design. Personally, it was through my experience of the theater that the idea of transformation became a source of fascination, ﬁrst as a child, and later as a designer of sets. The stage is a great place to understand the essence of transformation; here, storytelling is impossible without it. A theater set can play with the very nature of time by expanding or compressing it to create illusions that change a play’s pace, setting, and mood. There is something inherently dramatic about transformation, and that is its power. Michael Adams and I sat down to discuss the power of transformation with someone who has taken production design to new heights and brought a rariﬁed art form to a much broader audience—Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager. There may be a great effort behind the creation of a transformative experience, but the payoff is worth it. Think of a ﬁreworks display: so much work goes into choreographing explosions that last barely a few seconds. And yet, in that instant, people are mesmerized. The impressions formed in that brief moment can truly impact someone, forging an abiding memory or helping them see familiar things in a whole new way. Think of a memorable meal—the experience is ﬂeeting, but it might stay with you for years. In this issue, four acclaimed chefs behind these moments, Ruth Rogers, Bobby Flay, Anita Lo, and Jonathan Waxman, show us what transformation means to them. All around us, architects, artists, chefs, and other design innovators are creating environments that reinvent the familiar and provide people with deeper and more valuable experiences. For example, over the course of the day, one space might serve multiple functions. No one knows the power of transformation better than event planners. We checked in with three masters in the ﬁeld—Colin Cowie, David Monn, and Mindy Weiss—and asked them how they would re-envision one space, New York’s legendary Oak Room, for a dream event. We also invited one of my favorite forecasters and design visionaries, Richard Saul Wurman, to step back and muse on how transformation might play out in hospitality environments in the future. That’s the best part about designing transformative spaces: it gives designers the opportunity to innovate and become thought leaders in crafting uniquely imaginative experiences. We rounded up work from a new generation of product designers that is transformational—literally—and Paola Antonelli offered us a selection of dynamic designs from her current MoMA show Talk to Me. We also were honored to speak with Eva Zeisel, who reﬂected on her long and venerable career. In an increasingly virtual world, through the idea of transformation we can demonstrate that there are still inﬁnite creative possibilities in tangible, physical spaces and objects.

David Rockwell Founder and CEO Rockwell Group

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - October 2011