Behind the Curtains (Metropolis)

Published April 15, 2008 (link)

David Rockwell is sitting in a rocking chair in the lobby of an Aloft hotel, looking at a pool table. It’s 10 o’clock on a Monday morning in January. More accurately, he’s rocking in the rocking chair, which is green and plastic, and he seems calm for someone who created this theatrical space, whose architecture and design tends toward the bright sweeping gesture, the triple-note move, the overt discussion of play and stage and movement. Every thing looks good: the pool table is in the right place; the LED lights on the bar glow steadily; the entrance’s two glass doors are perfectly spaced; and the hallway carpet (designed to withstand 75,000 double rubs) looks like it’s barely been touched, even though it has, so far, supported hundreds of meetings, visits, inspections, and cocktail parties.

Rockwell is calm because his design for a new hotel chain—with the first location opening this summer in either Beijing, China, or in Lexington, Massachusetts—is looking great. He is happy because he knows that when the first one is finally built, it’ll look pretty much the way it looked in his mind—no small feat for an architect. And he’s in a good mood because the interior is feeling as right as it did the last time he checked in. There’s just one snag.