A Sneak Peek at the Oscars 2019 Set Design

Though red-carpet designer clothing is often a focal point of any Oscars ceremony, come Sunday, February 24, talk will likely also turn toward the elaborate aesthetics of the stage setup itself. That’s because this year, the Academy has enlisted award-winning creative director and designer David Korins (Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen) to help orchestrate an onstage set design that will not only match the glamour of Hollywood’s biggest night, but also make a purposeful statement that speaks to the state of the world at large.

“I took a long, hard look at the world, and regardless of where you stand [politically], it’s pretty clear that there are a lot of hard-lined lines in the sand,” he tells Architectural Digest. “There’s a lot of rectilinear and rigid thinking and there’s a lot of ups and downs, and I wanted to make something that was a distinct statement about inclusion. There’s almost not a [single] straight line onstage and [in] the entire design.” To bring his vision of inclusivity to life, Korins partnered with Swarovski crystals to create four designs that will reign prominently on the Oscars stage: a 1,600-pound cloud-shaped installation aptly called the “Crystal Cloud”; a three-story-high, 54-foot-wide ribbon-like formation called the “Crystal Swag”; and two “Crystal Presenter Backings,” which will appear directly behind the awards presenters.

“We have built an installation of an incredibly soft, beautiful, sweeping, asymmetrical portal that wraps literally out into the audience, covers the opera boxes, and hugs the audience,” Korins says. “It is a statement of inclusion, it’s a statement about community in the room and then also reaching out through the camera with the different kinds of immersive angles.” The Crystal Cloud is made up of thousands of hand-strung beads and will have an amorphous shape that will “literally feel like a cloud floating on the stage,” Korins says. The Crystal Swag, meanwhile, will play on a different, more structured architectural shape, with twists and spirals that make it look almost like a rain curtain flipped on its head, so that the “water droplets” appear to be falling upwards. “I think it’s really interesting to be able to work with [Swarovski], because if you draw it, they can build it,” he says. (Swarovski has had a longstanding relationship with the Academy Awards, and with Hollywood at large, dating back to 1932’s Blonde Venus and stretching to such recent films as 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody.)

“I really wanted to find something that felt organic and natural and iconic and elegant,” Korins says. “[Roses] obviously have an implicit warmth, an elegance. We’ve seen them in red carpets and we’ve seen them in fashion shows and parties, but I had never seen them in award shows, and I felt like they could deliver such a deep and rich texture.”

At the end of the day, Korins says, the most important thing is to deliver on an aesthetic that helps not only bind the entire ceremony together, but also pushes viewers to think beyond what they’re seeing onscreen. “It’s not lost on me, the profundity of being able to sculpt the narrative of the show,” he says. “And the really interesting thing about it is unlike almost any other design challenge, there is no linear written narrative—we get to make a real statement about what we see in the world and what we hope for the world.”

The 91st Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, February 24, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, and air live on ABC at 5 p.m. PST / 8 p.m. EST.