5 Questions with Roman and Williams
We’ll argue that the world’s most completely badass architecture and design duo are Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch of Roman and Williams.
For those of you unfamiliar with Robin and Stephen’s work and history, they started designing sets for movies in the ‘90’s. Growing tired of watching their fantastic sets get torn to pieces after the wrap party, they founded their design firm in 2002. Since then they have slayed design and architecture projects all over the country for luminaries such as Kate Hudson, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow and many others. If you’ve ever admired the sexy interiors of the Ace or Standard Hotels, then you’re squarely a Roman and Williams fan. Their first ground-up building in New York City was the critically acclaimed and universally admired 211 Elizabeth. Then came the brawny and beautiful Viceroy Hotel on West 57th Street. Their latest, The Fitzroy (pictured below) is presently under construction on West 24th Street. Featuring a lustrous green terracotta facade adorned by striking copper-clad windows, it should prove to be their boldest project yet. Robin and Stephen went deep with us here for five questions, so please enjoy the read!
Q. Which chunk of New York bricks and mortar would you most like to get your paws on for a redo? What would that redo look like?
A. Oh so many — tear down Madison Square Garden first — build a new version of Penn. Tear down the Zeckendorf towers at Union Square and build a beautiful building that that great square deserves — tear down the new towers at Astor place — and build some classic New York buildings that great place deserves — not these Singaporesque Glassy things that have so little character. The fear of another Postmodern debacle of bad traditional prevents a lot of intelligent people from being open minded about Traditional Architecture hybrids — there is a way to design lean, handsome buildings with shadowlines, articulation, verticality and character and not resort to clumsy classical ornament or gumbyesque shapes that early postmodernism indulged and died with. There is another choice besides glass and fiberglass — brick, stone, wood are still reliable and legitimate non-nostalgic materials — in the right hands they can be used to convey an Architecture that is perfectly suited to express our age — which does not have to be a flat glass synthetic box. It may not be the things we design — that may not be your cup of tea — but I cannot imagine anyone really feeling that a glass box on Astor Place expresses some sort of emotion that is personal to them in any way — unless they are some sort of Super Villain or something.
Q. When you were in the movie business, you and Robin had a knack for getting producers to spend more on fantastic production design than they initially or secondarily expected. How have you honed this knack when dealing with developers?
A. Well we always say we spend money in a unique way — if we had 100 dollars for a day — we wouldn’t spend 33 dollars each on breakfast lunch and dinner — we would splurge on one, go easy on another and hustle for the third — that would be a good day. Yes — we do ask our clients to dig deep — it’s a known fact that everyone tells everyone else they have half or what they have — we like to get it all out in the open — we would hate to see someone spend half of what they actually had and be disappointed — our philosophy is collect everything you have — spend it — it’s not that hard to be on budget once you have a number — being paranoid about slippage is another issue — a client typically will want more than they can afford — we don’t police them to stop — it’s up to them to hit the brakes — in the end they are always happy they pushed further than they originally intended.
Q. Your buildings and interiors are visually masculine with brawn and gravitas? What is the olfactory equivalent to them and why?
A. The smell? Sandlewood, Tar, Creosote, Honey, Salt, Burnt Sugar. Why? These are undertones, bass notes, long wavelength. The opposite is fun, but short term — we like to invest in things and get a little attached.
Q. You are in the water a lot. You grow a ton of vegetables and herbs in the earth. And you cook with fire often. How do earth, water and fire inspire your architecture?
A. Well not to be too heady — but we are truly interested in Mundane things — Mundane in the original meaning of the word — Mundial — of the Earth. We love the colors, the processes, the difficulty, gravitas and anchored quality of earthy things — Otherworlds are for the Afterlife — living is for Earth.
Q. You draw. Pencil to paper. The ultimate Luddite. If at all, how have you used technology to streamline and enhance your process?
A. Well after I draw things and get approvals our team of 25 Architects and Interior Designers does CAD drawings for coordination and construction — which is a good tool for the inevitable changes that occur — in the old days having to erase and redraw sheets of drawings was a difficult process — Drawing though in the early phase of a project is a great way to work — the hand — my hand — has no limits — it draws every and anything — in fact it has a mind of its own — I simply watch it sometimes — the computer on the other hand only responds to predetermined decisions — which in the early stages — are completely unknown — so in a sense they are pre-decided — or presumed — and they lose all their intuition, subtlety and the searching that the process of drawing does naturally — ending with buildings that look a lot like the CAD tools that are on the left side of their screen. Believe me I recognize them everyday — these towers we see are influenced more than you might know — by the simplistic actions of CAD — and not the product of the hand. i.e. — The Zeckendorf towers — which look a lot like early CAD tools.
