>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin tonight with the acquittal of george zimmerman in the death of florida teenager trayvon martin. joining me to talk about this, charles ogletree of harvard law school. noah feldman of feldman of harvard law school and dan abrams, a lawyer at abc news. >> people feel something went wrong with the system, and that may be lack of sophistication with criminal trials and the burden going forward and the fact that the defense did a good job in a sense of putting trayvon martin on trial, which he should not be on trial, he is the victim in this case. >> but in reality that is what happened. and i don't criticize the defense lawyers for doing what they did, they did their job, and i do criticize the prosecutors, because i thought they could have done a better job and had a stronger case an it didn't show up at all in this trial. >> rose: we continue with the conversation about the world of david rockwell, who does many things, including designing

theatre sets. >> what theatre introduced to me, and i think, in fact, it brings it toáé@i architecture projects, is an understanding of portability, an understanding of flexibility, the interest in crafting the moment. i think in theatre it is about these things that last two hours have deep, deep impact on us. >> rose: charles ogletree, noah feldman, dan abrams, and david rockwell when we continue. funding for charlie rose was provided by the following.

>> additional funding provided by these funders. and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. rose: george zimmerman was acquitted saturday in the killing of trayvon martin, the verdict has prompted a nationwide debate on issues of race, law, and guns. protesters from florida to california to new york have taken to the streets to voice

their concern and anger. the federal government is under pressure to bring a criminal civil rights case against zimmerman. president obama has urged the nation to remain calm and respect the jury's decision. joining me now to talk about this important case from cambridge, massachusetts, professor charles ogletree, he is a professor of law at harvard, and director of harvard's institute for race and justice. from boston, noah feldman, he also is a harvard law professor and a columnist for bloomberg view, here in new york, dan abrams, he is the chief legal affairs anchor for nightline on abc, and reports for abc news and good morning america. let me go first to dan abrams here at the table with me. you were not surprised and predicted this verdict. >> yes. as a legal matter, this wasn't a tough case. based on the fact and most importantly the law with regard to self defense. once all of the evidence was in, these jurors would have had to

convict, they would have had to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn't self defense, and in the momentñi!at george zimmerman fired that weapon, did he reasonably believe that great bodily harm or death could ensue? just what was going on in his head? not what actually happened so if those jurors had reasonable doubt about that question, then it is an acquittal and based on the fact presented in this case, i don't see how the jurors could have voted any other way. >> rose: charles ogletree what do you think of this decision by this jury? >> well, i accept the decision. i think this jury thought through the evidence very carefully and reached a verdict which is only available and that is not guilty. i disagree with dan a little bit, i think one of the problems with the case is that the pink elephant of race was throughout this trial, and no one could talk about it, i think if you look at george zimmerman's comments about trayvon martin before the shooting, and his comments that, in a sense, had a racial tone to them, that to me

was a sense that george zimmerman was looking for a black man and wanted to take a black man out that night with that gun. that is not before the jury, the jury didn't decide that he did not kill him without self defense, and i agree with the verdict. >> rose: but do you believe what you just said that zimmerman was looking for a black man with a gun and wanted to do violence? >> i do. i do, because he said that he made these comments, and dan is aware of them, he made a number of comments when he talked to the police, very disparaging comments about trayvon martin, who he had never met, who he didn't know, all he knew is that he was a black male with a hoody coming toward him, and that was must have for him to say the comments that he said, so that was an issue that had nothing to do with what act ultimately happened in the case many believe, but i think it is an underlying issue that will have this issue simmering, particularly in the black community for many, many years to come. >> rose: noah feldman? >> there is a big mismatch here

between the broad social meaning of this case about race and the possibility of profiling and the legal issue that was actually in front of the jury which was narrowing, as dan said about the question of whether there was self defense here and i think that is a problem with trials like this. you know, they mean a lot to a lot of people, they become a symbols like the rodney king became a marble and propound legal system but the legal system isn't well set up to manage those symbolic issues because it focuses on a very narrow particularities here so i think people who say this was the right verdict are responding to the details, people who say the big picture is problematic here, something is wrong here, this stems from problems we have regarding race in our country are also right. >> i agree with noah on that, i think that where ogletree and i differ is that the evidence that came in in this case he is referring to, and it was those words where he referred to -- look, in theory he was referring to other people getting away with these crimes, et cetera, in

this is always happening, curse words i won't repeat that were used in connection with it. unclear whether those were being directed at trayvon martin and they may have been and i also think he is right that if trayvon martin hadn't been a black man, that this probably never would have happened and as a result, will is a real questions a, questions to ask about that societily, but i don't think that what george zimmerman did .. upon following him and doing what he is supposed to do, which is to call the authorities, call nonemergency line, tell them what he is witnessing, is a crime. it may be a moral crime, but it is not a criminal crime. >> he was told to go back to his car and he did not do that. and, in fact, he went following trayvon martin, he had a gun, and he used the gun, now, all i am saying is there a lot of people who are wondering why did this unarmed 17-year-old black kid get killed? and that's because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, his father did everything he could

do, he was in a gated community, he was going to his father's girlfriend's house, he thought he was safe. but he wasn't safe. >> he was a black male, teenager walking through sanford, late at night, and that set off george zimmerman thinking that maybe this guy is -- >> i agree with you are saying, the problem is on the facts, people have been misstating the facts in this case, what happened is george zimmerman got out of his car, he was following trayvon martin, he admits he was following trayvon martin. >> rose: why was he following him? >> well, look he says he noticed someone suspicious and that's a fair questions to ask is high was george zimmerman following this guy in the first place? fair enough. but he et cetera out of the car, he is on the phone with 911, they then say to him, are you following him? he says, yes. they say you don't heed to do that, he says, okay. what happened next is one of the key questions in the case. zimmerman says he didn't follow him, the prosecutor says he did follow him and i think it is a reasonable conclusion for someone like professor ogletree

or others to say they don't believe he was following him but with regard to the 911 case he wasn't told get back in your car, et cetera, he was told you don't need to do that after he was already out of his car. >> i think the reality here is that we can debate this forever, the reality is that what the jury did use reach the only verdict he could reach on the evidence that was presented. the prosecution, i think, did a poor job, and i am a defense lawyer, i have been defending cases for many, many years as a public defense and as a defense lawyer and i think they did not rove beyond a reasonable doubt that george zimmerman was guilty of a crime. i will say that over and over again and i worry as well about, you know, what it means for the black community to understand how could a 17-year-old unarmed kid be killed and the answer will not be resolved by the trial that took place this past two weeks. it is going to be answered with larger discussions, debates, we will talk about it august 24th in washington at the march on washington, i think we need to

continue talking about it so black, white, male, female everybody can understand that this was a tragic situation, it shouldn't happen and we have to make sure it doesn't happen in the future. >> we should keep in mind just because something isn't against the law means the law is correct it is possible the law should be different, it may be that if you get out of your car with a gun and you are tracking somebody, and then subsequently you bet into a confrontation with them and you shoot them you say this self defense you shouldn't be able to raise a self defense claim under those circumstances, you know, the law is defined presently so zimmerman could raise that claim and so the jury had to believe the prosecution definitively proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he wasn't acting in self defense. but maybe if you are the earn with the gun and the person doing the following you shouldn't be able to avail yourself of the self defense defense. >> rose: you don't have to use -- you have to use self defense. >> exactly and had he been committing a crime he wouldn't be able to use this crime, they didn't prove he was in the

process of committing a crime but you could argue that he did something that shouldn't give rise to self defense. >> that is an important, high owe is the only state in the country where you actually have to prove self defense as an affirmative defense, meaning the defense has the responsibility to prove self defense as opposed to the prosecution having to disprove it and you could certainly make an argument that maybe the ohio standard is the better one, a lot of people -- >> rose: and if the ohio standard had been effect in florida we may have had a different decision? >> it would have been a tougher legal case, the defense had to prove that the self defense was, in effect, valid by a preponderance of the evidence it would have been tougher, i don't think it would have made a difference but a tougher case. >> rose: charles ogletree in terms of the reaction to this verdict, among americans in general and especially in terms of african americans, do you think most of them believe what you just said, that the jury made the decision that it should have made on the basis of the evidence presented?

>> or -- >> i don't think so. i think, charlie, a lot of people peel that something went wrong with the system. and i think that may be lack of sophistication with a criminal trial and the burdens that go forward, and the fact that the defense did a good job of, in a sense, putting trayvon martin on trial, which he should not be on trial. he is the victim in this case. but in reality that is what happened. and i don't criticize the defense lawyers or doing what they did. they did their job, and i do criticize the prosecutors, because i thought they could have done a better job and had a stronger case and they didn't, it didn't show up at all on this trial, i watched it every single day as did dan and you and i think that it just tells us that we have some problems in the system, you can't change the law, you can't get rid of stand your ground it is all over the country now and it works for black victims and plaques who are accused of crimes. so i think we have to do some things that will address these issues and have a conversation

about race. >> rose: okay. you make two very important points, one it has something to do with the way the system works and be the, b the whole issue with us since slavery the idea of race in america. you are saying we have to address both of those issues? >> yes. and they both are connected in some respects because there are people who have a fear of black men, particularly black teenage men, and trayvon martin fits within that profile. on the other hand, i look at this data from the center for disease control, and the reality is that people at trayvon's anal, 17 years old, black male the leading cause of death is homicide so something is wrong with our system that causes young people, particularly young black males to find themselves victims. >> rose: is it among each other, killing each other? is that part -- what is that statistic? >> it is a big part of it, if you look in chicago in 2012, they had 500 murders, and a lot of those murders were black on black crime, one of the ones we

saw most recently was a gaping member, alleged gang member being shot at and his since month old child was killed in that, those things shouldn't happen. the president has called for gun control, i think it is an uphill battle because most states believe in the right to bear arms and you are not going to change that, it is not a democratic or republican or red or blue state issue, it is a universal issue, people want guns, there are 300 million people in the united states and 310 million guns in the united states, so we are going to have, we are not going to solve that just by gun control but that is one issue, but education, a sense of talking about tolerance and we have to do it at the academy and we have to do it with children, we have to do it in communities, our religious leaders have to do it and we need to have a conversation because this trayvon martin case is not going to get over today, tomorrow, next week or next year, we are going to be talking about it well into the rest of this smu century. >> rose: and we have to do it in the media as well. noah feldman, the possibility of

a hate crime prosecution here, give me an assessment of that. >> well the first thing to understand is in 2009, congress passed the matthew sheppard and james bird, jr. hate crimes act which made it a lot easy easy easier to bring a federal prosecution in a case like this one, in that law if the prosecution could prove that george zimmerman shot trayvon martin because of his race, that would be enough to create a federal crime. bodily harm because of race is a federal crime, they don't have to rove any other element, so the law is there. then the question is, in the real world, could you actually prove that is because i it wouldn't be enough as i read the law just to prove that zimmerman followed trayvon martin because of his race, which i think might be pretty straightforwardly easy to prove. you would have to actually prove he shot him because of his race, and presumably zimmerman's defense attorneys would argue the same way they argue here, that the shooting took place as a matter of self defense and therefore not because of race and you would have to prove to a

jury 15 beyond a reasonable doubt that this explanation was not the real explanation. and i think for that reason, actually getting a conviction here would be extremely difficult and i think it is an important thing to keep in mind in light of the pressure that is being brought by civil rights groups and by lots of individuals who want to see a federal charge here, you know, a federal charge is possible, but the odds of success are really very slim. >> i completely agree, i don't think there is a chance, i think they are going to -- >> i agree too. >> i think they will talk about it, they will evaluate it, so they will say and i don't think there is a chance they are going to bring charges, and i think that the part of the frustration that is exactly as professor ogletree is saying when you look at the macro picture of this case i have been looking at the microup to, this if you look at the macro and that is 17-year-old kid goes to buy skittles and an iced tea at a 7-11 doing nothing wrong ends up dead, right? if you look at it from that perspective people are going to say are you kidding me you are not going to be able to get a conviction? this guy went to 7-11 to buy some candy and he

comes home dead. so that is the disconnect, i think is between the people who look at the case like that and i understand it, i get it, and those who are like me who are getting down into the microof then what happened? what -- and the legal issues, et cetera. and that is where i think that the disconnect in our society is, and it is not either side is wrong, it is just a question of, we all agree there is a legal matter, there would be no conviction here, but as a societal matter there is a bigger question. >> rose: okay, let me go and come back to some of these questions but i want to go next to charles ogletree and ask about the civil case and the difference standards of evidence and responsibility. as we saw, for example in the oj simpson case. well, it is very easy to talk about the distinction between the two, in a criminal case, it is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that is a very hard burden for the prosecution to meet in any case, and they didn't meet it in this case.

in a civil case, it is preponderance of the evidence. it is a much lower standard, it is about 50 percent, if you are just over 50 percent you can prevail. and to his benefit, tray i have has defending in the civil case two great lawyers, ben crop and darrell parks, they are defending the family in the civil case .. they can call -- >> rose: you mean representing the family of -- >> representing the family, exactly, the victim. and they can call george zimmerman as a witness in the civil case. >> rose: right. >> and he can be confronted with everything that he said or has been said about him. so it is a lower standard. it is i think an easier case. the dissatisfaction is it is only about money and maybe some other issues. but it is not going to send george zimmerman to jail, it is not going to bring trayvon martin back, but i think it is an important step to relieve some of the anxiety in the communities with this imperfect legal system, but there are remedies available and i think that is one of them. >> rose: but already two risks involved for the family, because

as professor ogletree points out this would be basically the family of trayvon martin against george zimmerman instead of the state against george zimmerman, which is why you have this lower standard. the danger is that in a civil case the defense would go after ray tray in a way they weren't able to go in the criminal case. there was a lot of evidence that was excluded in the criminal case about ray tray, meg things that they would like to infer, about fighting and other things that were found, et cetera, that would likely come in in the civil case that didn't come in in the criminal case and .2 is, under florida law, and this is where this has not been a classic stand your ground case this has been a self defense case, but stand your ground could become relevant in connection with a civil case because what the defense would try to do is get immunity from a civil lawsuit, and by piling that, and if they won that, they could then get attorney's fees from the other side and costs which is very unusual in a civil case, so those are the risks involved for the family in

bringing the lawsuit as well. >> rose: go ahead, professor. >> i think the risk, these are acceptable risks, in reality trayvon martin, dan, would understand, could also raise the stand your frowned, he is being followed by someone, and he has a right to defend himself, i think a lot of his behavior will come out in the case but i think the reality is that 17-year-old, unarmed, heading to this gated community is part of what will be part of the civil case if they decide to bring it, they may decide not to bring it but i think it is still not resolved yet. >> rose: tell me what you think actually happened as you said, you actually followed this case every day, i mean, what do you think happened in terms of the injury to mr. zimmerman and what he suffered, how severe or not severe what do you think may have been in his mind? what is it about the case and the packets of the case that you find most compelling? >> well let me just say this. i will say what i hope everyone would say we don't know what

happened. only george zimmerman and trayvon martin really know what happened on that might in february 26th, here is what i think happened based on what i have been able to ascertain and look at. this is a case of george zimmerman who was a respected guy in his community by his neighbors. he, one, testified as a character witness on his behalf about how he had saved her and i don't know why this came in, from an attempted robbery or break in into her home by two black men why that was relevant, i don't know. so all that is part of what has come in and i think what happened is that trayvon martin sees this guy following him, he gets upset, and he in a sense is going to stand his frowned, who is this guy coming from behind me, i am just going to my father's girlfriend's house, why is this guy following me? and i think that is where the fight happened. i don't doubt that zimmerman probably got his bruises in a fight with trayvon martin. the question is, when, how and where this gunshot happened, it

was in his chest and was a fatal blow, and we just don't know. and i think anybody who says they know is guessing at it and even with the forensic evidence it helps us but i still think we have a long way to go to figure out what happened. >> rose: as you all know there was a juror, one juror appeared on television last night on cnn with anderson cooper, what do you ma make of what she said, dan? >> i was struck by the fact the jury was divided at the beginning of. >> 3-3. >> 3-3, lee not guilty, two for man shrurt, and it seems that what she says was they started reading the law again and again, and were able to bring to their side the people who wanted as she put it, put it put in put it him to be convicted of something. >> the fact that will is a dead kid here and somebody should have to pay for that. and i think that was the

defense's greatest concern with was that this jurors were simply going to say, somebody has to pay here and we have got to figure out how to do that in the end, in my view and it sounds like in the view of the rest of the panel here, that as a legal matter, they still came to the correct legal conclusion. >> yeah, the instinct that somebody should go to jail here has to do with an american instinct says we shouldn't have this kind of violence occurring in our streets with no consequences and also connected to the idea of the stand your ground laws which encourages people with both with and without guns to stand up and fight and not to retreat to avoid conflict i think in the rest of the world when they look at us, they say wow the united states really has a tremendous tolerance for in kind of conflict, i think what happened in the jury room somehow reflects that process. we start with an instinct that somebody should be put in prison, something has gone terribly wrong and then we work down to the level of the details, and we say, well, we can't definitively prove exactly what occurred here, and therefore following the law, we are in a position where we have

to let it go and again, what that means if we wanted to reduce crime, reduce violent conflict of this type we would have to think seriously about changing the structure of our lawyers, as long as we he that it is better to set up our laws so people can use violence to defend themselves we are going to encourage these kind of conflicts that continue to exist. >> rose: charles, if, in fact, the prosecution had only sought manslaughter, do you think there would have been a different verdict? >> i don't think so, i think the prosecution just did not put a good case on. it wasn't a case that would prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. and i think if they only sought manslaughter he would have been acquitted of manslaughter. i think there are some other charges they should have considered but the reality is that in this case on these facts, it is very easy for a jury to say, we aren't sure that george zimmerman is guilty because we have his testimony, we have nothing from trayvon martin, we only have the kor

her's report, and a little bit of phone calls, but we just don't know, and we see zimmerman's injuries, they are real, and that may have justified their verdict of not guilty in light of the fact he was beaten pretty badly. >> i agree with charles that manslaughter, just charging manslaughter wouldn't have made a difference here, i think where he and i may differ a little, i don't really blame the prosecutors per se i think they did a decent job here and as a result i don't think that better prosecutors could have gotten a conviction with these facts either. the big mistake that i think many made, many believed the prosecutors made which i happen to agree with is that they tried to introduce all of these statements of george zimmerman to show inconsistencies in his account, the problem was that by doing that, zimmerman now doesn't have to take the stand. and be cross-examined, and the inconsistencies were minor enough they weren't going to make or break this case so if they hadn't done that, and they had tried to force george zimmerman to the stand, and

actually gotten him to the stand that in my view would have been the only way that they might have gotten a conviction. >> rose: what ought to be the national debate? i will begin with you, charles ogletree? what should we be talking about in the weeks and months and years to come that come out of this incident which has put a focus on it? >> ironically, it is exactly what we heard from rodney king two decades ago, high can't we all get along? i mean that is the theme that has to be a part of this, and we have to deal with the frustration in the black community, in particular but among others as well that how do we justify the death of this kid without any resolution, even a civil one is not going to be appropriate so i think these conversations are easy, and conversations with people who may not be friendly with you, i normally get a lot of hate mail and e-mails from this conversation but that's fine i deal with people like that all the time, but at least we are having a dialogue and i think we can have a dialogue that will make us go forward in trying to

understand the cocommunicate drums of race which is a very big problem. >> rose: noah feldman? >> in addition to the racial questions, that are hugely important ass and as professor ogletree says can be talked about, what is harder to talk about is guns, especially concealed guns and in this case no less in something like the new town shoot you seeing a tragedy that occurred as a consequences of the fact there is a gun on the scene not wielded by a police officer but by a private person and had there been a the fist fight between george zimmerman and trayvon martin it is unlikely trayvon martin would have ended up dead and that's a conversation that is very difficult to have in our country, as we know, it is not legal reform even spurred by something like the new town massacre had been successful so far .. but something we need to continue to talk about and makes us a different country from many countries in the world. >> and i will echo something noah said before i think the debate moving forward obviously has to be this part about profiling, but but be, i think,

about the loss, laws, are we happy with the laws as they currently standard stand? it is not a stand your ground debate, per se, we can have that, but that is not the issue here. the issue here is ourself defense laws and are we happy with the burdens of proof? are we happy with the laws with regard to the relevance of who instigated an incident or not and i think that is an important debate for legislatures and law professors to discuss as a result of this case. >> because of your legal background you have been covering so many of these sensational trials that draw the media's intense interest. was the media coverage here, what was it -- how do you judge it? what was the impacket of it? is that why so somebody people now are upsetable even though reasonable people say the jury reached a verdict that they can understand? >> look, the media has a bias towards conflict, right? i mean, in general, when there is a conflict, the media likes it, the media gravitates towards it,

and there is no question that at the outset when there were no charges filed, particularly when we didn't know that many of the fact, and look i will admit when i first heard this case i assumed that george zimmerman, you know, basically assassinated trayvon martin and that there were no charges filed. it seemed ludicrous. and as the facts came out, it became more nuanced, as george zimmerman's injuries came out it became more nuanced, but i think that the media narrative, you know, there are a lot of people who are zimmerman defenders, in particular, who are furious at the media coverage, saying it is the media's fault, the media's fault that this happened, that charges never should have been filed, et cetera. i don't blame the media. i think it is consistent with the way the media has covered other stories, and i think that the coverage of the trial was fair and for someone like me who has evolved so to speak, coming into this sort of thinking, there is going to be no way to

explain george zimmerman's behavior and coming out of it and saying i don't think that the verdict could have been anything but not guilty, i don't think i am sort of an out liar with regard to the way the media covered the story. >> rose: thanks for coming. dan abrams from abc news and charles ogletree from harvard university and professor noah feldman from harvard university and bloomberg view. back in a moment, stay with us. >> rose: david rockwell is here, he is an architect, he is a designer, in mean 84 he pounded the rockwell group. since then, he has designed everything from airport terminals to high end restaurants to the sets for the academy awards. but no matter what the project is, work always goes back to his first love, that would be theatre, lately he has been recognized for his work on such broadway shows as lucky guy and kinky boots, this year he was nominated for a tony award for best scenic design for both of those shows i am pleased to have

him ear, back at this table, welcome, great to see you. >> great to be here. >> the first love was theatre. >> that's true. >> why was that? >> . i think it was just the thing i was exposed to at a young age, that i think there were a couple of things, one is, it was communal, and i think that, you know, you can't really figure out as a designer i think you do what is in your dna, and it starts to evolve, and there was something about the possibility of going in as a group and it was community theatre early on, but going into a room and the possibility of story telling, of making, of crafting, that was seductive to me and felt like a way, what it really felt like was a way to mediate the world, the way to understand the world. >> rose: but does this mean you thought about maybe doing something other than a scenic design, being an actor or director? >> no, no. although my mom was a

choreographer. >> rose: right. >> >> rose: in new jersey. >> in new jersey, yes, she helped pound the community players rights out of waving for guffman. and then i saw my first broadway show, which was fiddler on the roof. what i have figured out is, and what i didn't expect is the interest in theatre, which is an interest in choreography and movement and story telling that influenced the architecture for 28, 29 years, was intersecting with the work i was doing in theatre, that i was looking at from an architectural point of view. so they have intersected in a way that is surprising and kind of thrilling. >> so now you are being recognized for your work in theatre which has to thrill you, for all of the other things you have done but this is back to first love. >> yes. >> how do you approach it? i mean, people with lucky guys come to you, lucky guy, and say this is the play.

these are the characters. help us create a place to tell our story. >> well, it starts with in the case of lucky guy, nora ephron's final piece and i know you had a lot of conversation here about that, and when george c. wolf, who is an extraordinary artist invited me on board i jumped at the opportunity. >> and here as a designer and as a set designer, what you realize is you are a part of telling that story. >> rose: right. >> a. >> and,. in fact in the case of lucky guy, it is 41 scenes, the last thing you could do is slow down for a big permanent piece of scenery, so part of the journal he was figuring out how to, first of all, what is the world? what is the believable world. >> right. >> in that case it was 1985, love of tabloid journalism.

>> rose: right. >> and when you look at all of those news rooms. >> rose: ten in new york city. >> in new york city which was a very messy, vital kind of place. and i came to new york in 79. >> rose: yes. >> so that was when i fell in love with the city. so the play needs to me as quickly as it can, so there is portable desks, there is clutter on the desks and then there is an over held ceiling with george and with a great collaborative team of lighting designers and projection designers it tells a story in movement through image and through fragment and it was just thrilling to work on that. >> rose: in the end, though, let me ask you this, and notwithstanding what you do. >> yes. >> and not -- and understanding clearly that sets make a good, big contribution, but in the end, bottom line, its actors moving around on a stage, on a

bare stage. >> of course it is humbling to realize you don't have that much control over the success, and it is part of how i choose the what projects to work on, since you have no say, really in the outcome, you are picking those journeys you want to be on, and so much of my studio's work is thinking about how a piece of theatre or restaurant or hotel or an object makes the connection with someone and how it makes an emotional connection. that is how you choose it, because, in fact, one-story i remember on lucky guy, there was this scene in a restaurant, and if there was one scene i thought i could contribute to was the design of this restaurant scene, so we built a bank ket and the actors couldn't relate. george kept saying the bank ket is too small and i said the bank ket is eight feet wide, any bigger it would be a barge, ultimately the success of that scene depended on realizing we

didn't need a bank ket we needed two chairs and an ashtray and an image because it was slowing down the process. >> rose: and that's what you see in terms of theaters is screen to the background and all of that kind of stuff which can give you something. that is more one man, one woman shows than it is anything else. >> and that can be over used too. i think it can become just a crutch. >> rose: exactly right. and the other interesting thing is the power of light. >> yes. >> yes? >> no question about that. lighting is -- lighting was, in fact, early on in restaurant design for me the thing that fascinated me the most. because it can set mood, it can set character, in theatre, it is the ultimate collaboration in the design of kinky boots, the surrounding wall is all about how it takes light. it is crafted like a factory where everything feels real intangible but it takes light.

>> rose: we will see a scene from this. tell me what this story of kinky boots is, so they will see the set and understand it. >> well, kinky boots is, can only happen in a musical, a very unlikely story of a third generation kid in northern friend who inherits a shoe factory, he doesn't want want to inherit the shoe factory he wants to do other things. cut to drag queen in london who has issues with his dad as charlie price, the kid, and the shoe factory has with his dad. >> right. >> and he reinvents the factory with lola, the drag queen from london, and so much of what i felt i needed to do was give that a real -- a reason to be. and there was one central idea, i think most design that has a central idea is stronger and that was every piece of the set in kinky boots is used in some other way. >> right. >> so the conveyer belts become

a big production number. the shoe racks move back and forth to create a kind of magic transition. so it is essentially one unit set that is very real that is about craftsmanship which was our link to the narrative of what charlie was doing in that factory. >> rose: all right. take a look here. roll the tape this is a videotape that gets gives you a sense of the design for kinky boots. >> in the last century making a range of shoes for men. we will begin this century making a range of shoes for a range of men. yeah, yeah ♪ yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah ♪ [ applause ] >> rose: that shows you behind the sort of look,s the whole mechanics of the whole thing, right? >> yes, and at the end of the day, there is the love of making and i think that is another important thing in my work, is you have to love making the thing. >> rose: what is the craft of set design? >> well, remember, i come to set design after 15 years as an architect and developing that craft. so i came to it with, you know, a toolbox of being able to model, being able to understand space, understanding the materiality. what theatre introduced to me and i think, in

fact, it brings it to our architecture projects is an understanding of portability, an understanding of flexibility, the interest in crafting the moment. i think in theatre it is about these things that last two hours have deep, deep impact on us, and i think the designer, it is a kind of poetry in that, you know, there can be 90 pages of words, but the set has to encapsulate that in a series of fragments and pieces that move and support the story. so it is a complicated question and i think every designer brings their own, their own point of view, and, you know, architects from early 20th century were very obsessed and focused with theatre and portability and movement, so i

think my way in is as an architect, first and as a set designer secondly. >> rose: and what is the -- what is the perfect director to collaborate with? >> that is a great question. well there are directors who are prescriptive so they will tell you exactly what to do, which in some ways edits the creative process, and there are directors who will leave it all to you. i think the best director is someone who really want to engage, wants to spend time working with you. i remember that very first design presentation for hair spray to jack o'brien, since it was my second broadway musical you can imagine i had drawn every moment of the show before this presentation, so i had a roomful of wards and models and images and he came in and looked at it and put his arm around me

and he said let's take everything out, except for those things that make you really fall in love with tracy turn what and look at the world from her point of view, that's a great director. when you look at the doing of this, and all that it entails, i mean, and all the things that you have done, i am reminded of what an architect said to me once, a famous architect, he said, i want a client who knows what they want, but trusts me to surprise them. that is a great line, and a seminal broadway designer, boris erickson who designed fiddler on the roof was known for in all the great productions with how print, how prints talk about cabaret that the ripple on the mirror which was such an important part of that set was a

surprise when they got into the theatre. >> rose: wow. >> yes. i want a client knows what they want but doesn't know what they want it to look like. i want a client who wants to take some creative risks. i think that is really -- that has been something we have tried to build into our studio is, not being afraid to stay curious and, and not be defined by one type of work. >> rose: who do you consider the client? >> well, in a theatre project, the client is the director. you are interested in serving the writer but the client is the director, no question about it. >> rose: ted conference you have spoken at, it is a famous venue to learn, and to hear, with huge demands on the speaker because you have a time limit, and you have a history of people who have performed well under

great pressure. so you redesigned or you designed this ted theatre in vancouver where they are going to have the 30th anniversary. >> yes. >> what went into that? >> it is a kind of dream project. so i have been involved with ted for, i think, 15 years, and a long time, and i spoke in monterrey, which was a thrust, so the audience was surrounded, it was much smaller than long beach, and then they moved to long beach, which is, i think, 2000 people, so it is a very big theatre, and it was great and production values got better, and i have spoken there, and had had that experience of your talk is influenced by how you feel in the room, like, you know, the environment affects how the talk evolves. and so when chris called me and said they were -- >> rose: chris anderson. >> chris anderson, who has taken over the ted conference and done

an amazing job, said they are going to can review, they are going to vancouver and can i create .. a tell polar pop-up theatre, temporal pop-up theatre in vancouver and i couldn't have picked a more ideal project .. because ted is a combination of theatre and festival, where it happens over many days, so we are creating from scratch a theatre designed around a talk, like going back to the roots of theatre and no one has ever done a theatre that is solely based on a talk, so that things like how an audience sits in the theatre. well if you are going t to be there three or four days some you may want to lean, some decline, so there are ten different ways to inhabit this theatre and we are working with steelcase, and actually developing custom furniture. >> rose: right. >> and the other thing that is

fascinating about is i am convinced when you watch a ted talk or any televised presentation, that relationship between the audience and the performer affected affects how the show comes across, so here, this speaker, the one doing the presentation, we surround him with an audience. >> rose: i have made speeches all over the world, and the worst thing i hate and fear the most if there is some big stage and the people are so far away from you. >> yes. >> rose: you feel -- >> like a note. >> that's right. >> like a moat. >> and you can't feel them, you can smell them, you can't hear them, you can't touch them, you can't feel their energy. >> yes. and if it is the reverse, if you are where they are and they are with you, you know, it just builds and enforces and pushes and makes you, you know, respond. >> yes. >> with their energy and give them more and they will give you

more. >> and when you are designing a space that is going to be used for three days, all day long of conferences, creating a room in which you can peel that connection. >> rose: go ahead. let me show you this. we have some video here. you gave us this. this is animation, folks, so this is showing the sequence of how this will be set up over four or five days. it is a 24-foot diameter speaker stage. here you are seeing the scaffolding for the seating and you are seeing the tiered seating. the upper ring, which will allow people to stand and perch. and you are seeing the seating. >> rose: how many people will sit in here? >> 1,200, about. and one of the most interesting things is the entrance, of course, is critical, how you build anticipation so this takes you through one of the entrances, the structure is wood, and here you are getting a sense of what it will feel like to be a speaker looking back at

those 1,200 seats with a ring side seats, ring side seats are interesting because one of the things chris asked for us to explore was trading seat with for seat -- so when you go a to a theatre you feel all crammed in here and we are having some seats where you can really get comfortable in them. >> rose: that is in 2014. >> late february, early march. >> rose: right, right okay. and the next we will see is an, animation of the design in rockwell you designed for the school of applied sciences. roll the tape. look at this. this is an animation as well. >> so cornell tech is coming to roosevelt island with an incredible campus, i think 2017. >> rose: they won a big contest to create. >> yes. if we can just freeze that for one second. what we are looking at is

multiple pieces, think of it as a kid with parts that googles offices so cornell is taking space there, and cornell tech will, the students will be able to reconfigure this kit as things fold out, every surface is writable so the same space, and we are also doing something that is really a request from kor mel tech, which is building in sensing, so when they build their full campus they will have the information about exactly how students move and use these pieces. so there. >> rose: so those senses will record that? is that the idea? >> yes. and it looks at something that really is, again, an intersection of theatre and architecture, i think, and that is that people, how we work is changing. we don't just do work in a solitary cubicle or me in a commune cal conference, if you think about the streets of new york where there is an accidental encounter that is happening in office spaces too,

so this is being designed to accommodate those three or four fixed modes we know about but i think more significantly all of the things that will allow students and real world professional whose who we will invite in to reconfigure it. >> rose: will 3-d have an impact on your work. >> they already are in a huge way. >> how so? >> well, we are able to treat spaces like sculpture in a much quicker way. we are able to visualize things. we are able to show clients a much greater variety. we are able to explore what things will look like in process. so it is changing everything. >> rose: can you imagine, i mean it hasn't been that long we have had all of these elements, the visualization you can do now because of a computer screen. >> yes. >> and you can see and make changes and adapt and it is an amazing kind of transformation. it is like brain surgeons now have the kind of -- imaging that

they have. >> yes. it clearly gives you more power. when you finish a project, the ultimate transition as an architect or designer is when you turn that client over, you turn that project over to the client, and then they take it and do what they want to do with it. that's when you have to let it go. so you can exercise all of that control up to the point where you turn it over. >> rose: so your core competence is? >> let me -- i am not sure i am wired to think core competence, but i think core passion. >> rose: right -- >> is finding ways that design creates interesting emotional connections, and it is why in a restaurant the chef is the script. you are working with a chef and

you are getting their point of view. they are telling you what they want and then you are creating a place where customers are going to come in and experience that. that is true in a playground, it is true in a park, so i think if i had to say core competence it would be collaborating, working with really smart, interesting people, listening to them and then processing it through a kind of filter that is about creating places that connect people. >> rose: when i -- what i think it is is a capacity to create a link between the heart of the creator and the eyes of the audience. >> that is great. i will take that. >> rose: all right. good. so when you will be ahead, what else do you want to do? because you have done so many things? you think about the academy award presentation, there you are, you think about theatre, there you are. you think about, you know, ted talks, there you are. i mean, do you want to create

homes? do you want to create all those things that we traditionally think of architects? >> well,. >> rose: parks or whatever? >> i absolutely want to create parks and i think that -- i have learned that you can make happen what you want if you -- if you pursue it in a way that is true to your point of view. and i think there are certainly building types that intrigue me. we have done a lot of playgrounds and part of the work in playgrounds has convinced me, i he some of the most interesting work going on in the world is what is happening at parks and public space. >> rose: and what is it and why? >> well, i just think the water front has been rediscovered in new york, i think public space, the relation of public and private space is a whole new world. >> rose: and it is an amazing thing in new york because new york for so many years was

looking inward. >> right. >> rose: everything was moved inwards towards the value, and central park and -- >> and cut off from the water. >> rose: yes. >> exactly. >> rose: and all of a sudden now in the last 12 years, we have opened ourselves up to this thing that so many cities have flourish, whether just venice or paris or whatever. >> and i think new york is leading the conversation and look i think the high line is miraculous talk about an intersection of architecture and landscape so i am very interested in parks and the work in playgrounds which was self initiated convinces me that we need to pursue that, one building typely tell you that is ripe for major reinvention and that is stadiums. i think a billion dollars building that is used pen to 20 days a year no longer makes any sense so i think if you look at the thought process of merging public-private, you think about

how those buildings could be used in other ways, that is hopefully, i will get a crack at doing that one of these days. >> rose: i am sure you will. thank you, dade. >> thank you. >> rose: great to have you. david rockwell, an extraordinary opportunity he has in a sense to connect us to the, as i said the mind and heart of creators and performers and people who somehow stand there in front of us with a huge desire to both entertain, inform, and explain the world that they see. thank you for joining us. see you next time.

>> funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. and american express. additional funding provided by these funders. >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. >> you are watching

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