Sitting down w Ilan Waisbrod of studio Gaia. The famous Israeli Designer tells us about his journey and past projects.
GOOD COMPANY INTERVIEW: ILAN WAISBROD, DESIGNER BEHIND BOND ST, CAFETERIA, TAO VEGAS, W HOTELS, OPENS STUDIO IN LITTLE RIVER TO DO HIS BEST WORK.
The Man Who Designed the Rooms You Remember Just Moved to Miami to do his best work.
There is a generation of New Yorkers who came of age in a particular kind of room. A long communal table. A light they couldn’t explain. The feeling that a place knew exactly what it wanted to be and didn’t need to tell you. Republic in Union Square. Cafeteria in Chelsea. Bond Street in Noho. The 40/40 Club. The W Seoul. The MGM Skylofts and Tao in Las Vegas.
Most of those people couldn’t tell you who designed those rooms.
That’s exactly how Ilan Waisbrod wanted it.
The man who designed the rooms you remember just moved to Little River.
Ilan Waisbrod is the founder of Studio Gaia, one of the most consequential hospitality design firms of the last half century. If you have eaten at Republic in Union Square, drunk at Cafeteria in Chelsea, had your first sushi at Bond Street, or stood in the 40/40 Club or the W Seoul or the MGM Skylofts or Tao in Las Vegas, you have been inside his work. You just didn’t know his name.
That’s how Ilan prefers it.
I sat down with him this week for a full conversation — his childhood in Tel Aviv, the Israeli army, the leap to Milan with $100 in his pocket and no Italian, the fight with Jay Z, the pandemic, the decision to leave New York after thirty years, and why, at this stage of his career, he is doing the best work of his life in a small office five minutes from his apartment in Miami.
I should say something about how we got here, because it’s part of the story.
