Headed by Dickie Bannenberg and Simon Rowell, Bannenberg & Rowell is an award-winning megayacht design studio based in southwest London. Bannenberg spent some 15 years working alongside his late father, Jon Bannenberg, and is determined that his office should continue along the creative path initiated by Jon in the early 1960s.
While Rowell is the creative director at the firm, Bannenberg retains plenty of Bannenberg DNA, and has a clear idea of what he wants coming out of the studio. Broadly speaking, he will focus more on looking after clients and the commercial side of the business, but he and Rowell can be quite interchangeable in terms of seeing new clients or just hunting down new finishes and suppliers. In this Megayacht News Leadership Series, Bannenberg speaks frankly about lessons learned from his famous father, how Bannenberg & Rowell can and does do more than interior design, and what the future holds.
MYN: What part of being a megayacht designer do you find is the most challenging?
DB: The challenge is always to create something fresh and new for your client. “You’re only as good as your last job” sits in the forefront of your mind and is a good reminder that the design process needs to be reset every time. The trickiest times are when a client has something in their mind, but chooses not to make you aware of it in initial briefings, and it only emerges, despite your best efforts to flush out preferences (and dislikes), sometime after your first presentation.
MYN: Being the son of one of our industry’s most respected icons must have its disadvantages as well as advantages. Can you give us some examples?
DB: Well that’s true, and whilst I’m not complaining for a second, Jon’s shadow is naturally a famous and large one. You need a certain emotional resilience when you are constantly reminded of his brilliance, charm, salesmanship, generosity, and all-round wonderfulness. On the other hand, I’ve never pretended to be Bannenberg Mark 2 in any shape or form and carry out a different role at the studio, so there is a degree of insulation from the scary prospect of a direct comparison. I’ve fortunately never been in the position of someone saying, “your father did it better.”
MYN: What was the most important lesson you learned from your father, and how have you brought his teaching into your own business?
DB: I learnt not to be daunted or scared by anything or anyone. Plus, I share with him (and did not need to be taught) an ability to get on with people, which is at least as important.
MYN: You sold off your Marblehead Mega Yacht management division. What was the business rational behind your decision?
DB: Marblehead started off life when we carried out the complete rebuild of Talitha G for Paul Getty in the mid 1990s. It made sense, knowing the boat inside out, to then manage her operation. We extended this to a few other yachts, initially Bannenberg designs only, but one or two others as well. It was an exciting period, but eventually I decided that it was something of an anomaly to have a yacht management “cell” embedded within the design studio, particularly as the design business began to grow strongly. I also felt that it caused a certain amount of confusion in functions and even the names of the companies. I was a whole lot happier once I had a pure design business operating out of the building and when we rebranded the studio in 2009. It was the final step in tidying up a few years of a fairly schizophrenic nature.
MYN: Is there a trend to current interior design concepts, and if so, can you put it into words?
DB: No. I annoy everybody by failing to identify trends, as I think the industry is just too diverse, let alone its customers, to make a credible stab at proper trend spotting.
MYN: Which do you prefer most, the designing of beautiful classic yachts such as Blue Bird, or the contemporary designs of modern megayachts such as Lady Petra?
DB: I’m afraid I like both, however much you would like me to commit to one or the other. In fact, the two yachts you mention both have a special resonance: Blue Bird, as she represented a pass of the design baton from the next generation of the Getty family to the next generation of the Bannenberg family; and Lady Petra, as she was the first (and quite possibly only) time when we have been given the responsibility to design the yacht for the hands-on owner of a shipyard.
MYN: You would describe yourselves as megayacht designers, but the industry would probably pigeon hole you as interior designers. Does that bother you?
DB: I think that’s probably fair. It doesn’t bother me as such, but I am keen to try and alter that perception. As it happens, we have done exterior design work for Abeking, Lürssen, CMN, Oceanco, and Benetti. It’s only a matter of time before someone takes the opportunity to have a complete Bannenberg & Rowell yacht.
MYN: Given the huge number of multi-millionaires in the world, why do you think there are not more superyachts?
DB: As my father used to say, nobody actually needs a yacht. They are the ultimate discretionary purchase, and there will be plenty of multi-millionaires for whom it’s not remotely important and they don’t want the exposure that comes with it. I can completely understand that.
MYN: If you were able to verbally sketch your ideal client, what words would you use?
DB: Decisive. Receptive. Amusing.
MYN: Looking into your crystal ball, what yacht will be on your drawing board in 2023?
DB: An 80m new build, interior and exterior by Bannenberg & Rowell, for one of the new wave of newly rich fracking magnates.
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