First Look at David Korins’ 2022 immersive Oscars set design

For the 2022 Oscars set design, winners and presenters will literally immersed by their peers.

Oscar fans were given a sneak peek at the 2022 Oscars set design on Thursday. 

David Korins was announced production designer for the 94th Academy Awards on March 9, but he's been working on dreaming up the Oscars design for months.

Best know for his work for Broadway, including the Tony Award-winning musicals “Hamilton” and “Dear Evan Hansen,” as well as “Beetlejuice,” Korins first designed for the 91st Academy Awards. 

The biggest feature of the design this year is the revamped seating in the orchestra section near the Dolby stage. 

"With its revelatory return to the Dolby, the Academy Awards will be a truly immersive experience. We are decking over large sections of the audience to have winners and presenters literally immersed by their peers," Korins shared on Twitter.

The last time the audience was reconfigured for the Dolby Theatre was more than a decade ago when David Rockwell designed the show for the 81st and 82nd Academy Awards. (Read more about those designs here.)

"The Academy Awards are rare in that there is no 'script' to drive the look," Korins said on Twitter. "At what feels like an important time for humanity, I feel humbled to be making a statement about where we are headed in the future with this design."

Set design previews were shared with People Magazine, Architectural Digest and Town & Country Magazine. 

The designer told the magazines that his designs are meant to evoke Hollywood's Golden Age, with a theme of "electricity and elegance."

Throughout the ceremony, there will be three different sets and moods. 

"Especially for television it is important to create a lot of depth. I looked at a lot of optical illusions and played with Old Hollywood motifs and materials," he told Town & Country Magazine. "I wanted to look back at where we have been—and especially acknowledge the past couple of years, but also look to the future and show where we can go."

Viewers can expect a "portal that looks into the future."

"It has to do with an incredibly deep and incredibly forward-thinking sort of future-forward view," Korins told Architectural Digest. "In that future, we trade in the currency of elegance and electricity."

90,000 Swarovski crystals

It wouldn't be an Oscars stage without the glitter and sparkle of Swarovski crystals.

Korins will employ 90,000 of the shimmering gems, included in the artful shell of flat orbs and moving pieces.

Swarovski crystal curtains and other elements are a staple for recent Oscar designs and 2022 is no different.

"Every single piece of scenery on stage has a light inside of it," he told Architectural Digest. "It kind of glows from within."

The set also features more than 5,000 linear feet of LED tape on the set, about 120,000 pixels of LED just on the tape alone.

"I'm trying with the design to actually make something that feels complex and yet spare and kind of glowing and hopeful," he said. "Let's cast a big, huge beacon of hope on this powerful moment that we all get to experience, and let's find that light, and then let's supersize it."

Korins posted this video online featuring an animation of his sketch to concept:

Past Oscars set designs

In 2020, the Oscars stage saw a "swirling cyclone" of Swarovski Crystals thanks to Jason Sherwood, production designer for the 92nd Academy Awards.

He described the set design to Architectural Digest: “I wanted to create a design that would feel as complex, encompassing, and dimensional as the cultural impact of the films themselves.”

2019

Korins' 2019 design featured a large proscenium arch, called the "Crystal Cloud," projection mapping, and 40,000 real roses on stage. 

The 90th Academy Awards in 2018 saw the last stage design by Derek McLane.

McLane was first hired for the 85th Academy Awards in 2013 by then-Oscars producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. The Tony Award-winning production designer added more awards to his name since taking on the Oscars gig. McLane earned Primetime Emmy Award nominations for every year he worked on the Oscars telecasts and won in 2014.

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2009

For his first stint as Oscars production designer, David Rockwell did something unique inside the then-named Kodak Theatre. 

Here's how The New York Times described it in 2009: "The biggest change involves reimagining some of the seating arrangements in concert with redesigning the landscape of the stage, including a new, curvaceous thrust. The novel new topography will allow more interesting camera work and more varied and streamlined entrances and exits."

What Rockwell created was a more intimate show. Scene and prop changes unfolded right before the audience. For both of his ceremony designs, Rockwell put the orchestra on stage, allowing nominees to be only steps from the action for a "communal party experience." With the hanging chandeliers, the theatre turned into a club atmosphere. 

Stay tuned to The Gold Knight for the latest as the final days of preparations continue.

The 94th Academy Awards, for outstanding film achievements of 2021, will be presented on Sunday, March 27, 2022, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and will be televised live on ABC and in more than 225 countries worldwide.