As founding principal of the 1988-established Selldorf Architects in New York, Annabelle Selldorf’s recent projects in the city alone range from the Martha Washington hotel and Marta restaurant to high-rise residences along the High Line and an award-winning recycling facility in Brooklyn, New York. Here, Alexandra Champalimaud asks the architect about her early inspirations, her choice of New York over Paris, and her penchant for restraint.
What innovation has impacted design most profoundly over the past two decades?
Computer-aided design has deeply changed design; it affects every aspect of design and production, and as technology evolves, it continues to change how people approach design.
How would you describe your signature style? Have your travels or commissions influenced your approach and aesthetic?
The question of signature style is difficult to answer per se. Our work is not readily recognizable in a single gesture or a style but rather through an attitude. We try to create an architecture that is focused on place, on purpose, and on finding a clear, specific, strong, and beautiful resolution to a problem. Naturally, my travels and the diversity of the commissions are an influence; I do believe the visual experience we accumulate finds its way into our work, whether it be the materials we use or a detail or a particular architectural composition or urban construct.
Residential project the Walden House in Vail, Colorado overlooks a pond and the surrounding Gore Range and New York Mountain
You’ve been interviewed countless times. Is there a question you’re surprised that no one has asked?
I don’t often get asked about the team of people I work with in our studio. I have four incredibly talented and capable partners, and a group of amazing and smart creative architects in the office. Our work together is inspiring and fun for me, which is a great privilege.
Your father was an architect and your mother was trained as an artist—they must have been your original source of inspiration growing up. How were you able to incorporate these influences into your own aesthetic?
Certainly I credit both of my parents very much with what I consider to be my taste, how I look at spaces, colors, textures, objects—I believe that has a lot to do with their way of looking at the world. While I think that how I approach design has been shaped by my parents’ creative background, of course it is not the only inspiration. I feel very lucky to have studied with some wonderful professors who have inspired me but ultimately we have to work at—and challenge the ways in which we think—not becoming complacent, and continuing to shape our own thinking and remaining open to new ideas.
The dining room in Danny Meyer’s Marta restaurant inside New York’s Martha Washington hotel
What enticed you to work on the Sims Municipal Recycling facility in Brooklyn? Is sustainability a big focus within your practice?
Sims Recycling facility was a great opportunity to apply our design ideas at an industrial scale, [while] still making it a place for people. Learning about recycling and sustainability was a very important aspect of the project for us. Thinking about the environment and learning to adapt intelligent strategies for increased sustainability are indispensable for all design professions, as we have to respond to the consequences of climate change with urgency.
Growing up you always imagined yourself moving to Paris but instead left Cologne for New York to study architecture at Pratt Institute. Would your design aesthetic have been different had you stayed in France?
I do not think my design aesthetic would be fundamentally different. Certainly I would have had very different experiences in my training and surely there would be traces of Parisian chic but no, I think I would have gravitated to many of the same choices that are the signature of our work.
The Neue Galerie New York was once the circa-1914 Carrère & Hastings building
Your portfolio is global and each culture has its own set of rules and customs. What is a recent project that required you to conform around a cultural priority?
We worked on a residential project in Taipei and in the course of design development, we learned there are customs and expectations relative to how a house is sited, to where the views from rooms are directed, to how spaces interact, and how public and private are separate in ways that are different from what I am used to.
You’ve described yourself as ‘50 shades of gray,’ referencing your preference of neutrality and restraint. How does that apply to your personality and lifestyle outside of design?
There probably is some co-relation—generally speaking—but then I can find differences everywhere. While I might like quiet over loud, I also like fast over slow. It is important that contradictions and tensions coexist in a balanced and nuanced scene or else it gets very boring, very quickly.
The Sims Municipal Recycling facility perches on a Brooklyn pier
Your work is refined and serious, however, you are known to have a wicked sense of humor. How does that play a role in your design process?
Because I am sometimes overly serious my sense of humor helps me make light of things, and it certainly helps me to not take myself too seriously.
