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Design as strategy: Matthew Rolston goes ‘beyond boutique’

From his days as a photographer for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine to his years on the road as a music video director, Matthew Rolston has seen pop culture trends come and go and come back around again. Now as a creative director for hospitality projects including The Redbury Hotels, Highgate Hotels, and most recently, the Virgin Hotel San Francisco, Rolston is mixing his photography and design perspective with an experienced knack for what sparks pleasure in people — and what hotel guests will want to post on Instagram.

A guest room at The Redbury / Courtesy Sbe
A guest room at The Redbury / Courtesy Sbe

HOTELS: When a client approaches you for creative direction, and maybe they’ve got a new brand and some ideas, how do you work with them?

MATTHEW ROLSTON: First of all, the projects are all diverse. They are all different. With The Redbury, Sam Nazarian came to me with nothing. He didn’t even know the name. He brought the property and he wanted to open the hotel in six months. He knew who he wanted to attract. He wanted it to be like walking into one of my videos. So I knew he wanted it to be theatrical.

The opposite of that would be the Virgin San Francisco. That’s a very defined brand. It wasn’t a branding exercise.

But whatever the extent, I’m not a designer. I want to be super clear about that. I’m a strategist and a problem solver. I am going to look at a design problem from a strategy standpoint.

If you hire Philippe Starck, who’s an absolute genius, you know what it’s going to look like. There’s a similarity and similar signature to all of his properties wherever they are. It’s very identifiable. That’s what makes him a great designer and one of the greatest designers of hotels in the world. But that’s not what I do.

I look at it very openly, trying to understand strategically from a business standpoint what makes this property and product different from anything else. What is its reason for being? How can I differentiate it from the rest of the marketplace? What can I bring to it that is innovative and new or will feel innovative and new in four years when it opens?

Matthew Rolston photographed by Davis Factor
Matthew Rolston photographed by Davis Factor

H: You are best known for your work as a photographer and as a video director. Would you say that setting the tone for a hotel is a similar to films?  

 MR: My work was more commercials than feature films. And that work was very atmospheric, but I approach hotels the same way. Instead of a set designer, I have an architect to work with and direct. Instead of a designer or wardrobe stylist, it’s a uniform company, and instead of a set dresser, it’s an interior design company. It’s really the same process. It transfers very comfortably to me.

If I have to apply my style to it, whatever I do, whether it’s minimal or maximal, there’s a theatricality and a romance. I want to feel a kind of cinematic progression that something happens when you walk in the door and then something happens when you get to the next doorway, or the next space. Each space kind of progresses onto the next and has that cinematic quality to it.

Then the romantic quality. I want people to feel a sense of infatuation when you meet someone new, whether a friend or a romance, and you’re a little bit obsessed with them. And you project onto them an idealized identity. It’s like falling in love. It’s giddy and exciting and strangely, relaxing at the same time. And those contradictions are what I want people to feel. Giddy and relaxed. Romantic and stimulated.

The lobby at The Redbury / Courtesy Sbe
The lobby at The Redbury / Courtesy Sbe

H: Do you think it is becoming rarer in the hotel world to have a customized approach or one-off design?

MR: I look at it from my practice, which is beyond boutique. I’m a one-man consultant and clients who come to me want just that. They want something idiosyncratic. I’m not working on Aloft or those kind of brands. That’s a different corporate approach and it’s equally valid, but just different.

People come to me because if I’m beyond boutique then in a way so are those properties. And that’s true with Virgin because every one of their properties is going to be completely different. I didn’t work with Virgin Chicago, but it’s very different from San Francisco. There are certain signatures but Virgin Hotels didn’t ask me to replicate that. They didn’t refer to that at all.

H: As a problem solver, what are the first questions you ask?

MR: Who is your audience? Who is this for? And are you competing with anybody for that idea? And if so, who do you think they are? So those are the strategic questions.

On an aesthetic level, I’m going to ask if the project has a name. If not, I’ll work on naming. Naming is part of the narrative and storytelling, and I think you have to tell stories to reach people.

The last question is: what is the feeling you want people to walk away with? Can you describe how you want them to feel when they experience this new property? That’s hard for developers to get because they are looking at a business proposition and it’s hard for them to get onto the aesthetic or emotional side.

H: But even if they aren’t that kind of person, I like that you ask that and get them thinking about it.

MR: Or I can draw it out of them. I ask, ‘What is the experience you would like to pass onto others?’ That has to be nailed down and then I go marinate on that. And then come back with usually two or three completely different ways to go to solve the problem. I’m an idea person and that’s my job. I’m going to give you an idea, then the next one, and the next one and keep them coming. I will never try to oversell one that doesn’t land. And most people on the business side don’t know what they want until they see it.

H: What is your take on hotels that create Instagram moments within them?

MR: It’s inevitable. It’s a modern form of communication and marketing. So why shouldn’t we do that? Even if Instagram didn’t exist, I would still want to create little vignettes that are memorable and create those incredible visual moments where you turn around a corner and your eye is hit by something entertaining that creates desire. The doorway, portal entrance sequence at Redbury New York was an obvious Instagram moment. You just have to accept that it’s part of life, so let’s serve it up and make it good.

Public area of the Virgin San Francisco
Public area of the Virgin San Francisco
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