New York designer David Rockwell has once again been tagged to put together the set for the Oscars, which will take place on March 7 at the Kodak Theater. Instead of messing with a good thing, he’s once again framing the stage with the Swarovski “Crystal Curtain,” made up of 92,000 crystals hanging in an upside-down crescent shape over the proceedings. This time the crystals (rendering above) will be colored in white, platinum, topaz, and bronze hues (the dominant colors last year were cool blue and white). The set will also include three circular, revolving platforms along with rotating LEDs and metalwork projection screens to keep things moving along at the notoriously slow event (which will have two hosts this year: Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin). “We wanted big, open, crisp environments that would work for comedy. Eventually, that led us to the idea of the set being about immersion in the world of movies. Stylistically, I realized the optimism of modernism in L.A. and the heyday of Hollywood was the perfect way in,” he told the L.A. Times yesterday.
David Rockwell’s star turn at the Oscars last year won the designer considerable plaudits, so he’s been asked to reprise his role, according to UPI. “We loved the look and feel that David created for the Oscar show last year,” one of the producers said. “David is so creative and has such a great big-picture approach to set design,” said another. The well-known interiors ace has done considerable amount of work on Broadway as well as the Kodak Theater where the Oscars are taped, so really, it’s like a homecoming.
As you’re dazzled by light refracting off one million Swarovski crystals at a very Rockwellian Oscars this evening, there’ll be one award worth watching besides the Mickey Rourke vs. Angelina Jolie faceoff for Biggest Lips. Up for best documentary feature is The Garden, the story of a 14-acre community garden in South Central that was the largest of its kind…until it was bulldozed in 2006 by developer Ralph Horowitz to make way for a Forever 21 warehouse.