David Rockwell Has Big Plans For 25 Jobs Lane

Architect David Rockwell likes movement.

But in his line of work, there’s one problem: most buildings stay put. Unless he makes them move.

While his latest project in Southampton Village isn’t exactly portable, it’s certainly demountable, Mr. Rockwell explained during his illustrated talk, “Untold Stories from an Eclectic, Exceptional Practice,” last Thursday night at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, as the last of a lecture series running in conjunction with the “Landmarks of New York” exhibition curated by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel.

In June, Mr. Rockwell’s Manhattan-based, cross-disciplinary architecture and design practice, Rockwell Group, received the go-ahead to construct a semi-permanent, open-air, tent-like pavilion on the lawn at 25 Jobs Lane once the art museum makes its much-anticipated move on November 10 to its new facility located on Montauk Highway in Water Mill. The 300-seat structure will be a multi-functional venue that can accommodate performing arts, movie screenings and even ice skating in the winter. On January 1, 2013, the village will take over operations of the 115-year-old Parrish building, which will eventually see a renovation.

“The Rockwell Group did this on a pro-bono basis because, the reality is, we’re taking over this building in January and we cannot afford to maintain it on its site here and we recognize the need to do outdoor theater, outdoor performances,” Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley said shortly after Mr. Rockwell arrived for his talk.

Mr. Rockwell said he expects the structure to be ready by next summer.

“I’m pretty certain the completion of the pavilion will be more punctual than I was tonight,” he said of his slightly late arrival on Thursday night, drawing a laugh from the packed house in the museum’s gallery.

But the architect kept a straight face. In fact, he rarely cracked a smile during his 40-minute presentation.

That’s not to say the architect doesn’t have a sense of humor, though. The jokes were non-stop, from his very first set of PowerPoint slides chronicling his early acting days in his mother’s community theater productions while growing up on the New Jersey shore.

When he was 12, the young boy visited Manhattan and saw his first Broadway show, “Fiddler on the Roof,” with set design by Boris Aronson—one of his personal heroes.

At that age, Mr. Rockwell didn’t know a thing about architecture, he said. But he remembers being “hypnotized” by the movement of dance and design.

It’s a passion that’s stayed with Mr. Rockwell, who is now 56 and responsible for the design behind countless hotels, restaurants, spas, theaters, museums, playgrounds, public spaces and Broadway set designs, including that of the hit “Hairspray,” which ran for more than 2,500 performances from 2002 to 2009.

The show’s sets were the first-ever to utilize LED lights—inspired by the 1960s game Lite-Brite, he said—on Broadway. They won him the Tony nomination for Best Scenic Design in 2003.

About three years later, Mr. Rockwell’s firm, which he founded in 1984, was commissioned by JetBlue Airways to design its terminal at Kennedy International Airport.

“I spend a lot of time in airports, and I wondered why they were so counter-intuitive,” Mr. Rockwell mused. “Why does the sign never makes sense in terms of where you were moving? To JetBlue, we proposed bringing in a choreographer.”

Mr. Rockwell paused for comedic effect, and the audience graciously reacted by bursting into laughter.

“We brought in Jerry Mitchell, who’d been the choreographer on ‘Hairspray,’” Mr. Rockwell continued. “If you want to see a strange look, tell the CEO of JetBlue you want a choreographer to co-design the terminal with you.”

Before both “Hairspray” and JetBlue, Mr. Rockwell was commissioned 14 years ago to design the Dolby Theatre, formerly known as the Kodak Theatre, in Los Angeles—home of the Oscars. Then, in a “strange, surprise move,” the architect said, he was invited to design the set in 2009 by that year’s executive producer, director Bill Condon.

“I said to him, ‘Don’t people watch the Oscars, really, to say how crappy it looks? Isn’t it a kind of blood sport?’” Mr. Rockwell recalled. “He said, ‘That’s true, but that’s the opportunity.’”

And so, Mr. Rockwell ran with it. He ripped out 600 seats in the orchestra and created a space where the audience and the performers were in the same set.

“What you were watching the Oscars for is to see reactions,” Mr. Rockwell said. “You wanted to see community. You wanted to see the relationship. And it was one of those truly near-death experiences because the Academy essentially allows the producer to do whatever they suggest.”

That included installing a curtain made up of about 10,000 Swarovski crystals—though Mr. Rockwell approximated it to be 1 million during his lecture.

“I guess the takeaway of this story is if you’re doing a theater, you should have to design sets at least once to understand how to use a theater,” Mr. Rockwell said. “And I’ll bring that experience to this pavilion in Southampton, I promise.”