It is only a few weeks before the much-anticipated opening of the Park Hyatt New York in one of Manhattan’s most controversial skyscrapers, but designer Glenn Pushelberg, ensconced in a chair in the boardroom of his studio in Toronto, betrays no stress.
The 210-room hotel, for which he and his partner in business and life, George Yabu, designed the lobby, a slew of public spaces and 92 suites, takes up 25 floors in One57, the soaring blue-glass tower that has become a symbol in Manhattan of modern-day excess, derided by critics for both its height (92 storeys) and its blatant catering to the world’s one per cent (the rest of the building houses luxury condos, the most expensive of which – the penthouses – sell for a reported $115-million each).
“We are very excited,” Pushelberg says blithely of the launch, which took place last month. “It should be quite a party.”
If the designer seems sanguine about a project that many other studios would consider huge, he comes by it honestly. After all, creating luxury hotel interiors, from the Four Seasons in Tokyo to the Viceroy in the Maldives to the St. Regis in Bal Harbor, Fla., is all in a day’s work for the duo, who founded Yabu Pushelberg 34 years ago and have simultaneously become one of the most sought-after and under-the-radar of global design greats. Next month, the pair will officially be inducted into the Order of Canada for their contributions to design, which also include iconic department stores (Bergdorf Goodman in New York, Printemps in Paris) and a host of sumptuous restaurants (for which they received a James Beard Foundation Award). Their investiture as Officers of the Order is slated to take place at Rideau Hall on Nov. 21.
On this day, though, Pushelberg seems less interested in talking about their honours than in showing off Yabu Pushelberg’s expanded Toronto HQ, a vast studio-and-showroom-cum-clubhouse (including nap room!) housing the Canadian-based portion of their 120-person creative team (they also have an office New York).
“It’s very democratic,” Yabu says of the neat rows of work tables marking the studio area (there are no executive offices in the space – he and Pushelberg work alongside their employees) when he joins the conversation a little later. “We sit out here with everyone else.”
It is this apparent lack of pretension that may explain why the pair responsible for such high-profile projects as Ian Schrager’s Edition Hotels or the new Dalloyau boutique and café in Hong Kong lack the face and name recognition of an inveterate self-promoter such as Karim Rashid or a diva like Zaha Hadid outside high-end design circles. If their relative anonymity perturbs them, though, they don’t show it. Asked if they have a signature style, Pushelberg replies: “Not really. We always tailor our work to the context and demands of each project.”
And those projects are wide-ranging – another reason, perhaps, that they tend to disappear, chameleon-like, into their creations. For Schrager’s London Edition, for instance, the look was modern baroque. For the new Waldorf Astoria Beijing which opened in March, they went full-out Far Eastern glam.
If there is one topic about which the duo is even vaguely rueful, it is the fact that Yabu Pushelberg has very few homegrown commissions these days. (Their last corporate project in this country was Toronto’s Four Seasons, completed in 2012.) Why is that? By global standards, “Canadian budgets are often small,” Pushelberg shrugs. “Maybe they think we’re too expensive.” In any case, they are proudly Canuck, they say, calling Toronto a great base and this country’s design talent among the best in the world.
Until that next Canadian project materializes, the country’s most understated design superstars have plenty with which to occupy themselves. There’s a retail flagship to complete (Ports 1961 in Shanghai) and a new textile line in the works (they already design furnishings for companies such as Avenue Road and The Rug Company). They also have a wish list, which includes designing airline interiors.
Later in the day, the pair will in fact be boarding a plane for New York, where they spend about half of each week. Before he takes his leave, however, Yabu imparts what it is that keeps them motivated, even as luxury projects in all corners of the globe have become their norm. “It is important,” he says, “to maintain your curiosity.”
Not to mention your humility.