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Encore Designers Roundtable : Lenahan, Burke, Thomas, Butler & Hong

By Chuckmonster on Thursday, 15th January 2009 5:34pm
  » filed under Las Vegas  comments: 3

   


Just got back from the "Design Roundtable" which featured five folks intimately involved with the the conception and execution of Wynn resorts stretching back to the Golden Nugget days.

Above Left to Right : Todd-Avery Lenahan, Jerry Burke, Roger Thomas, DeRuyter Butler, Mike Hong

Hunter recorded the whole thing and will be posting it in the next day or so, but here's a coupla quotes that I jotted down that struck my fancy.

[Encore is built from ] artistic gestures... which excite the passions of real people. [It is] not just architecture, but art itself." - Todd Avery Lenahan (Encore spa & room designer, ABA Partners)

When discussing his initial discussion with Steve Wynn about the rooms - which went through nine or so iterations before setting on final designs - Wynn charged him with "creating an elegant room from a modern point of view that would stand the test of time." Todd also discussed the "modern hospitality style" which values sleek design over ergonomics, usability and guest experience. It's his opinion that 'modernism' trend is already dead.

Roger Thomas expanded on this thought by saying the point was to "create a sophisticated experience for the most travelled, most experienced and well heeled guest" all of it framed in classical understanding of structure, balance and architecture with the guest experience being tantamount to all decisions.

One of the big winner moments for me was when Roger Thomas essentially said that Encore was inspired by Matisse, a point I had asserted in a Twitter posting last week which was "Wynn = Picasso, Encore = Matisse."

Winner winner, Sinatra dinner!

I know this post is quite cryptic, but it's meant more as a teaser to the audio of the event, which will probably be posted as an "episode" of the VegasGang podcast RSS.



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Comments & Discussion:

 MinVegas posted on Thursday, 15th January 2009 - 6:48 pm

Do we know who is replacing Roger now that he's retiring (at least from Wynn?)

Also, is that Hunter with his face in an iPhone in that photo? (I'm using my big old honkin' CRT HDTV for a monitor so I can't see pictures too well.)

 MinVegas posted on Friday, 16th January 2009 - 12:18 am

Well, I can now answer my second question: It is not.

 Chuckmonster posted on Friday, 16th January 2009 - 12:23 am

jerry beale is replacing roger after he retires in late may. i think june 1 is the "date" who knows what he's going to work on.... golf course? seeing encore macau through to completion (yes). wynn cotai? maybe.



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