Daily News from New York, New York • 94

Robert Redford among Portman Hotel foes Si trian malls don't work. "They cause traffic jams, attract vagrants and hurt businesses not directly on the mall," he said. Kent was instrumental in bringing Redford into the court action. "He wanted to get involved," Kent said. In his statement, Redford backs an Actors Equity plan to build over the two theaters.

"A pedestrian mall that requires the destruction of these two theaters must be thought through more carefully," said Redford, who added that the theaters are "rich in history." Opponents of the hotel have lost all legal battles so far, but a stay prevents any demolition of the theaters pending a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court A spokesman for the actor, who has an apartment in Manhattan, said he wanted to appear in court himself but had to leave town at 7 this morning on a business trip. The latest suit seeks to use a technicality to halt the demolition of the Helen Hayes and Morosco theaters to make way for the controversial, $292 million hotel. Attorney Grier Raggio said a city1 law forbids the construction of anything over a street which cannot later be removed. The Portman's design calls for an escalator which runs over the street and into the proposed-.

pedestrian mall at Broadway and W. 45th St The suit also charges that the theaters cannot be demolished or hotel construction begun until Community Board 5 approves the proposed pedestrian mall. "It seems clear that the hotel has sidestepped standard community board approval on this," said Raggio. "They are also in violation of the street ordinance. The hotel must be redesigned to comply with the law." Fred Kent, an official of the Project for Public Spaces a citizens group, said any delay might give architect John Portman time to redesign the hotel to include the Helen Hayes and Morosco.

Portman officials have charged that delays might result in the loss of their financing. Kent also said that his group's experience shows that most pedes By BRUCE CHAD WICK CTOR ROBERT REDFORD has Joined the fight against UtA, the Portman Hotel. A statement by him in support of efforts to save two legitimate theaters on the Times Square site of the proposed hotel will be read in court this morning in connection with a new lawsuit filed by hotel opponents. Redford's comments will be heard at a hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court on a suit filed yesterday by two members of Community Board 5, theatrical producer Alexander Cohen, the nonprofit Project for Public Spaces and City Council-woman Carol Greitzer (D-Manhattan). mil' am iyy i- JiLaS II fit 1 1 Mmc Black and white can be cheerful, if it is Japanese design Zen and the art of designing tyEiisitf ifl's Bike Continued from cover the entire wall and said, "I can take that piece apart and put it back together again.

And they know it" Because most of her work is so big, many of the commissions come from corporations such as Pep-sico and public groups including the Port Authority. She designed the altar for St Peter's Church at 54th and Lexington Ave. Outdoors, her giant steel pieces have been set on Park Ave. sites and in Central Park. But Nevelson is not famous solely for her sculpture; she is also famous for her clothes, her studio, her pronouncements, her Russian fish Kiev recipe, even her triple-decker false eyelashes.

She might just have the most famous pair of false eyelashes in living memory. Nevelson's appearance stops traffic. She wears expensive custom-made clothes designed by Scassi, plus her own "finds," like Chinese robes, but puts it all together casually like a rich gypsy. And of course the face is defined by the huge black lashes and wide smudges of grayish-black eyeshadow. If it is a little cold in her studio, she just whips out her floor-length chinchilla coat lined in antique paisley to stave off the chill.

"I am working harder than ever and enjoying myself. I am too busy to think about age," she says. "But it was not until I was 75 that I realized just how much I had done. I have built an empire." Not only has she built an empire, she has built a virtual palace in the city. At the corner of Spring and Mott Sts.

in Little Italy is her studio-house, composed of three buildings containing 70 rooms. The house is a huge labyrinth designed just like her some of her sculpture; a series of spaces and forms on different levels. In 1977, the Pace Gallery on E. 57th St mounted a show entitled, "Mrs. N's Palace," recreating a room from the Spring St studio.

A recent visitor to the studio dubbed the place "Louise's Temple." Many of the rooms are painted black, contain black furniture and her black sculpture. The shuttered windows are almost closed allowing only shafts of light to pierce the blackness. Nevelson loves black. "Black is the most aristocratic color of all," she declaimed. There are those who say black is the absence of color.

I say black is a color and there is no color like it" After delivering her pronouncement on the color black she looked around and said, "You must create your own world. I am responsible for my world." ff By PRISCILLA TUCKER Just like New York, only "more speedy." Son of a Tokyo kimono wholesaler, Mitsuhlro Matsuda has been designing for. his French-named Nicole firm for 15 years. He also operates 30 shops, usual in Japan where wholesale and retail operations are not separated, as they are in Western societies, because for the Japanese how the clothes are presented is as important as the clothes themselves. Se although some of his designs are already in Barney's, Henri Bendel and Macy's stores here, he is happy to show them his way.

In a setting of natural wood and glass with Nlcoles for the 25-to-35-year-old group next to more expensive' Mme. Nicole styles (jackets $250, knit shirts $100) and sportier Nicole Club terry and sweatshirt numbers. There are women's and men's black, white or neutral jackets, full and loose, paired with easy pants or fluid skirts, and accented by sweaters and knit shirts in subtly colored weaves. Occasionally there is a ripple of gray silk polka dotted in white, flash of. red, the slash of an assymetric cut.

But the mood is serene. Even the flowers sent by friends for last week's opening prove distracting. Asked -to place himself in Japanese fashion, Matsuda says: "There are two kinds of Japanese feeling: Mt Fuji, bright colors, the geishas; and the tea ceremony, flower arranging, Zen." Clearly Matsuda works in the second fashion that is like the sound of one hand ARE so many shades of black," I 1 Iatsuda muses in his new boutique at 70th c. and Madison Ave. "Black with red is passionate.

Black with gray is formal and chic. Black with beige is a handsome, grayish man. Black with blue is distinguished, like a woman of class. "-Black with white Is funerals, sadness." One of the new names in the wave of Japanese designers taking over international fashion, Matsuda, dressed in black shirt, narrow blue line-patterned tie and Levis, shakes his Suga haircut and talks about "the soul of clothes." Matsuda says he is against styling that "will make people turn around on the street and He is interested in how clothes make the wearer feel inside, not with how clothes make a woman or man look on the outside: "The face will change with the mood," he says "and clothes are one way to influence your mood." He is proud that his clothes "age very well." Matsuda is the first major Japanese designer to make the Tokyo-New York connection direct Well-known top Japanese designers like Kenzo, Issey Miyake, and the flamboyant Kansai Yamamoto, who recently opened a boutique in SoHo, all went to Paris in the "70s. A decade later, Matsuda has skipped Paris and the French fashion attitude of important design.

Tokyo today, he points, out, is i3 flapping. i JlliltHiitM.