19 Quotes by David Rockwell

Briefs need limitations and invitations

Every project is an opportunity to learn, to figure out problems and challenges, to invent and reinvent.

I like entertainment and think mastery is good, though I don't feel like a master. If a theme means having a story that's legible, then that's certainly what we do. But we don't treat design as an add-on layer.

We're showing the romance of travel at a different scale -- not at the level of a whole building, but as a series of experiences on the inside, on a scale that doesn't try and compete with the Saarinen building.

I don't think of myself as a brand. Branding to me feels like a position or identity that's frozen in time. I'm more interested in transitions.

For me the most interesting part of theater is the relationship between the audience and the performer. In creating a theater, you get to mold essentially, out of raw clay, what that relationship's going to be. That's an interesting thing you don't get to do on Broadway.

It creates a kind of landmark that people know when they go to Rosa. It's almost like an oasis. It's kind of cool; it orients you.

What we've done (in Detroit) is created a movie set so it gives movie-goers a chance to enter a space that feels like a sound stage and in fact, is very sound-stage-like in how it's set up, ... But the set that you're entering into is a collage of both existing and historical Detroit buildings.

You have to think of a restaurant as a series of impressions. But what makes my job so great is there's no one answer that's right for every restaurant.