Syracuse, then the Architectural Association: the London years behind David Rockwell

Before Broadway there was London. David Rockwell trained in architecture at Syracuse University and then at London's Architectural Association, and he came out of it convinced that a building could work like a stage. He had grown up in one: his mother, a dancer and choreographer, cast him in community repertory productions, and a move at twelve from New Jersey to Guadalajara gave him the streets and markets of Mexico as a second set. In 1984 he founded Rockwell Group in New York; today it employs more than three hundred people, with offices in Los Angeles and Madrid, and its work runs from hotels and restaurants to Broadway scenery, train halls and museums. A Tony for the sets of She Loves Me and two Emmys for the Oscars sit beside the National Design Award; every project, the firm says, begins with a story written for that place alone.

His furniture and fittings are easier to reach than his theatres. La Mercanti supplies British projects with the Pax cocoon armchair he drew for Tecno and the Inciso taps and accessories made with Gessi.