Architecture

Go Inside the Most Iconic Nightclubs in History

December 6, 2022

From NYC’s Studio 54 and the Palladium to Day-Glo European discotheques, these images of club-culture design will make you want to dance

“I love visuals, but visuals are nothing more than what special effects are in a ­movie. Design, though, is an ethos. It’s all about the mix—these disparate elements coming together to create excitement,” says Ian Schrager, in AD’s August 2017 issue. Schrager has demonstrated this commitment since 1977, when he and Steve Rubell established the famous Studio 54 in New York City.

Studio 54 and other clubs have, since the 1960s, been exercises in innovation—and, especially, in design innovation. Their contributions to the conversation shouldn’t be underestimated. This is the theme of the new exhibition, “Night Fever: Designing Club Culture (1960–Today),” at the Vitra Design Museum (Charles-Eames-Strasse 2 in Weil am Rhein, Germany).

“There is a strong connection between club culture, architecture, and design,” says Catharine Rossi, a design historian at Kingston University in London, who cocurated the exhibition. “Nightclubs are a specific architectural typology, which was really only invented in the 1960s: spaces designed for nocturnal revelry, often concealed in some way, and made of artificial light and sound as much as bricks and mortar. The freedom that the special type of space that the nightclub embodies has seen them become platforms for experiments in multiple design disciplines.”

Clubs were introduced as destinations for counterculture entertainment. And their aesthetics—their vibe—was at the heart of the experience. Electric Circus in New York City, has been credited as the first of these clubs. It was introduced, in 1967, at the same address as Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The interiors (from Charles Forberg, the architect) were tented from white fabric, and the posters (from Ivan Chermayeff, the graphic designer) were psychedelic.

The success of this multi-format endeavor would echo across Europe and its clubs, including Space Electronic—which was established in Florence, Italy, in 1969. Rossi enthuses, “Designed by Gruppo 9999, it is one of the lesser known groups of Italy’s celebrated Radical Design movement. Space Electronic is largely absent from architecture and design history, and, yet, research has shown how this club, as well as a number of others designed by the ‘Radicals,’ was a vital site for multimedia and multidisciplinary experimentation.”

The 1970s meant disco music, which meant dance—and the installation of dance floors. Studio 54 was, perhaps, the most iconic: an achievement from its owners, Rubell and Schrager, as well as its designers, Scott Bromley and Ron Doud. Then, there were the clubs that embraced the arts and the artists. Mudd Club (1978) and Area (1983) in New York answered Studio 54 with downtown addresses and a cast of characters that included Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. (Haring even curated an art collection on Area’s fourth floor.) Rossi shares: “Area stands out it. Opened in 1983, the club changed its entire interior every six weeks and attracted artists and performers from Andy Warhol to Grace Jones. Also in New York was Palladium, with an interior designed by Arata Isozaki, which featured two large banks of television screens that moved up and down over the dance floor and a huge mural by Keith Haring.”

Disco music, then, evolved into rave music. The most famous clubs in this era, 1980s–2000s, included Club Fac 51 Haçidenda in Manchester, England (in a former warehouse that was redesigned by architect Ben Kelly) and Berghain in Berlin (in a former plant).

In 2018, the fate of clubs is unclear. But, what is clear is that clubs have had an enormous influence on culture—and, of course, design—that can be celebrated at the new exhibition, “Night Fever: Designing Club Culture (1960–Today),” at the Vitra Design Museum.

This article is originally available at www.architecturaldigest.com