Ideas and inspiration fly – a sketch of a piece of paper blowing along the street, his pet pig Clemente, die cast factory parts, talk of knitting and acid baths. It’s a whirlwind of references and cross-references, of subtle adaptations to the spatial mythology that evolves a narrative for each project.

“My personal goal is to design really cool spaces. That’s what I get a kick out of,” explains Mozer. It is seemingly a simple process for Mozer and his Chicago-based office, Jordan Mozer & Associates (JMA) that has been conveniently self-perpetuating. “My clients want successful spaces so I need to keep them happy to be able to do more cool spaces,” he rationalises. Success stories such as the East Hotel in Hamburg (Sleeper Spring 2005) where the F&B area was estimated to bring in €3m per year and is actually doing €16m. Where the guest rooms were expected to breakeven at an average rate of €100 per night but are averaging €260.

So what’s the secret? “First we solve the rationale issues, the operations and deal with the building code. We want to make sure the space will function,” says Mozer. Cooling, acoustics, escapes and disabled access are all considered, as are the efficiencies. Food must be able to get to tables hot. How to deal with the delivery of food products in and garbage out.
“This has been learned by working with operators and getting yelled at for 24 years,” Mozer submits. He believes that designing the whole project, including the kitchens, allows JMA to offer a better product and is more representative of their holistic approach. But as long as he can have control over the relationships between different spaces he is confident of solving the project in terms of budget, time and functionality.

“Then I look at what is missing in the context,” continues Mozer. “We take ideas and follow through on them. We want there to be a narrative, a drama, to what we are doing. Some of it is architectural, another layer is the surfaces. Another layer is the objects you actually come into contact with. We look at each of these to see how they support the story.” Take the Copper Bleu restaurant in Lakeville, Minnesota, “where sculptural elements of the rolling landscape are taken into the structure.”

Or East in Hamburg where Mozer developed references from the building’s former use as an iron foundry. Reference the rounded cast alloy shapes of the guestroom basins or the old iron bracket shapes used to form today’s reception desk. Market research of the target audience appropriate to the client’s expected price point was intuitive. What do they wear? Where do they meet and eat? All undertaken in an attempt to capture the Zeitgeist of Hamburg.

Similarly at the Renaissance Times Square (Sleeper September/October 2008), Mozer picked up the X emblem used in the pillars, carpets and furniture of the entrance lobby from the sleazy porn-movie heritage of Times Square. The hotel’s mezzanine level lobby now comprises three different ‘theatre’ spaces, themselves supportive of the link to the theatre-land scenery outside. Designing unrepeatable spaces makes them repeatable experiences for the guest. This is music to every hotelier’s ears. “Where there are layers of information in a space, where you cannot ‘get it’ all at once, it’s a repeatable experience,” Mozer qualifies. “So when I get fascinated with white coral at South Beach Miami (for the Royal Hotel) that gives layers to a space that are a way of respecting the customer.” A respect shown in the use of beautiful cast-aluminium basins, hand-finished with a highly polished exterior and brushed interior, even in the public bathrooms at East Hotel. This serves to give these spaces a sense of style and belonging not afterthought. 

“Most clients will specify a chair or wall finish. We go and make them,” explains Mozer of JMA’s efforts to create unique spaces. The lobby wall at the Renaissance Time Square is made of a series of strips of copper. These were cut with hand shears and then bathed in acid before assembly to create a unique, warm and sensual wall covering. The same glassblower has been used for the last 17 years to create, for example, the milk and honey “drips” that hang from the lobby ceiling within the Times Square hotel. Similarly, a long standing relationship with a German plasterer gave Mozer the confidence to create the soaring columns at East spiralled with asymmetric curves reminiscent of tendrils of pale smoke rising lazily from a dying fire on a still day.

Although each project is unique, certain signature rounded and sculptural forms re-appear in various guises. Some of his furniture has found it’s way into more than one project: the futuristic chairs in the Yakshi’s bar at East with their hyperbolic parabola backs made of reinforced Kevlar resin were also seen in the Nectar bar at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. This wing back motif, based in part on the wings of the rear end of a 50’s automobile, is often repeated in Mozer’s work. Consider the bed headboards at the East hotel. But look carefully because almost always there is subtle but discrete difference in the geometry of a chair back or slightly different feet for similar-looking furniture. Much of Mozer’s work is to be found in his hometown of Chicago, with successful restaurant projects such as the Cheesecake Factory, the Hudson Club & Vivere. The city will also see a new hotel by JMA, constructed within a former knitting factory. The die-cast machine parts and reclaimed wooden beams of which will become part of the mythology of the finished product. The story of the neighbourhood will also be told with the use of curtains and lampshades knitted within the local community. More prosaically, blue bricks salvaged from a nearby building site will be re-used as a decorative element.

Germany has also been a highly productive market. In contrast to all that is orderly and rational about the country, Mozer believes that “we provide the something that is it missing: design full of discovery and secrets.” Nevertheless there have been learnings along the way. The host podium at the entrance to a restaurant in the US, for example, is right at the door to better provide information to prospective diners. In Germany this is seen as too confrontational.
The German projects give an indication of the breadth of JMA’s work: retail interiors for department store giant Karstadt, two restaurant options and the surreal colossus of the children’s museum at Volkswagen’s Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Hertzblut bar for Holsten and East Hotel in Hamburg. Connections in Germany led to a relationship with Design Hotels which resulted in the short lived celebrity of the Royal Hotel on Miami’s South Beach and an award winning stand for the marketing organisation at ITB Berlin. A new hotel project beckons in Dresden. Not that all passes without censure. “Some of my light fittings have been criticised as not being functional (with regard to the light source) but they are functioning because they delight people. That is a function of design too,” Mozer argues of the emotional content of his work.

There is a sense of wit in much of his output that connects with guests. Take the “handshake” with a Mickey Mouse “hand” as guests enter the Surf and Turf restaurant in Matsuyama, Japan and the “high four” push to leave. Or the references to dancers’ legwarmers on the legs of his furniture for the Iridium restaurant near the Lincoln Centre for the performing arts on the Westside of Manhattan. Some of his peers are also not so patient. “I don’t care about what other designers think of my stuff. What I do care about is the people who are using the space. Some designers are brainwashed into thinking a bare white box is beautiful and sometimes it is. I have this other idea of what people want that is more idiosyncratic and doesn’t follow those rules,” argues Mozer. “It is compelling and I have a sense that people ‘get it’.”

Just as the layers of stories build up for each project, Mozer is also a man of many facets. A degree in industrial design was followed by a degree in architecture as Mozer amassed the skills that have allowed him to take the ideas of fine art learnt from his mother and apply them to practical situations; “to create the architecture like an art form.” The ceaseless sketching, a personal interest in jewellery design and sculpting, the vat of knowledge and lack of difference between high culture and popular culture mark him out as truly a Renaissance man. And we are not talking Marriott brands any more.

www.jordanmozer.com