Musings about nightclub design, architecture, marketing and other such inklings
- How Stair You
My mom told me that it was not polite to stare. In some circles this may be true, in the design circle it could not be more false. Who couldn’t stare at this stair? From director Jacques Tati the film Mon Oncle is a designers dream to all that is timeless. Sometimes there is nothing as satisfying as a good stair.
- “My name is Inago Montoya, prepare to design”
My name is not Imago Montoya, thou if “you killed my father you should be prepared to die.” The line from the film Princess Bride is one that will never ever leave pop culture and has left a lasting and quotable meaning for so many. Not unlike the character that Mandy Patinkin plays in the film who introduces himself with such conviction and confidence, so does Philippe Starck. Philippe has designed some of the most famous places, people and things in our mid century. Nightclub design and his relationship with Ian Shrager has left more than an indelible wet spot on the sheets of boutique hotel design as well as the makers of things make. Pieces and parcels of his new reality show below as written by The Independent.
My name is Philippe Starck… I am a type of new bottle opener… I am a sort of door.” It’s hard to imagine Sir Alan Sugar going on like this at the start of The Apprentice without a severe ratings dip and a visit by men in white coats, but what the growly East End barrow-boy-made-good and the Gallic merchant of minimalism do have in common is that they both now front elimination reality television shows. The Apprentice we all know about. Starck’s new series, which begins on BBC2 tonight, is called Design for Life. The winner becomes part of Starck’s “tribe” (his somewhat cultish description of his Parisian design company) for six months, their triumphant concept given the opportunity to join the world’s most iconic orange-squeezer (the one that looks like a 1950s sci-fi movie’s idea of a space rocket) or those transparent Louis XV-style chairs that look as uncomfortable as hell.
“You make good design if you speak about life, sex, flesh, sweat. I shall open ze zip of myself and say ‘Now take what you want’.”
Passionate and busy. “He lives out of an aeroplane a lot of the time. But once he was pinned down he was fantastic to work with, he would turn up, usually on time, or if late he’d stay late. He took it very seriously, he engaged with the students on a one-on-one level, and he was always funny and entertaining. A lot of the time when hanging round to start filming he’d be sketching a pair of sunglasses or something. You can tell his mind is constantly working, working, working.”
I’ll bet this will be a good watch.
- Nightlife Recession Swims Over the Pond
Didn’t we just talk about this on our good ole U.S. of A beer soaked soil? For U.S. economists this is a downturn. For the UK, they call it a tragedy.
This could be the greatest tragedy of the recession for the U.K.: Humble British pubs — the kind of place Britons can go for a relaxing pint (or five) and chips on the way home from work — are closing at a rate of 52 a week, according to the British Beer and Pub Association. That’s 2,377 pubs closed, and about 24,000 jobs lost in the past year.
The association’s report also says that local pubs were the hardest hit, especially due to the economic downturn. Interestingly, the key to survival seems to be selling food: pubs that focus more on selling food are only closing at a rate of one a week.
But it isn’t only the recession to blame. Industry representatives said that 20 percent increase in the U.K.’s beer tax (which is set to rise), as well as increased regulation (such as the recent pub smoking ban).
The pub is ingrained in the British sense of identity — so much so that two MPs from the All Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group tabled a motion in House of Commons urging banks to lend to beleaguered pubs, and encouraging fellow lawmakers to “support their local pubs.”
The recession is destroying British pubs, changing how we bury our dead, and ending Sunday in France. It seems like fallout from the downturn is making fundamental changes to our very culture — on both sides of the Atlantic.
Mathew Katz
11:57 AM ET | 07-22-2009 | permalink
- I Want my Luxury Brand in a Bottle; Damnit!
I have written about this recession and what I think it means for the hospitality, nightclub design and nightlife industry as a whole. I have seen many trends, ups and downs in the economy and general malaise in the nightclub business. We have become a country of need versus want. What you may WANT is an exclusive experience with bottle service, limos, babes and boys in toy land complete with sparklers and $750 bottles of Tattinger whilst you compete with the Panerai wristed competitors at the next table. Simply, what you really NEED is a drink at a bar, with interesting people, a dude with a Timex and to be equally entertained. (writer embelishment about the Timex) The environment is decidedly less refined thou equally alluring. With regards to entertainment and nightlife selection the value of a dollar is the value of a dollar no matter what people say. The numbers don’t lie; This is a value driven economey and with that said, you have to be just a little different and just a little more fearless. People are choosing again and choosing wisely. Down and dirty is cool. Lowbrow is the new high brow. Luxury branding is drawing on the blue collar mystic. Sans cigarros, the Marlboro man is “that guy”. Polished nails, designer squared and daily showers are so………….well, yesterday. Maybe not the showers but you get the point. The a joining piece from the New York Times so articulately describes the value driven society we have become and how this has trickled down to our choices of haute yet hot, hospitality. Text below from the Times writer: ALLEN SALKIN
“We’re in a period where a snotty attitude is not helping people feel better about them,” he added.
Super fancy is out. Revenues are down 20 to 40 percent in the last year at those throbbing Manhattan nightclubs that flourished by catering to Wall Street guys who casually swiped their credit cards for four figures, club owners said. Many once-hopping clubs, like Lotus, Mansion and Room Service, have closed or are being remodeled.
At Marquee, the West Chelsea club and gossip-page fixture, revenues are down 22 percent so far this year compared with last, said Noah Tepperberg, one of the owners.
“Three or four years ago it seemed like every bar in New York had a rope and some imposing looking guy,” said David Rabin, an owner of Lotus and the president of the New York Nightlife Association.
Now, he said, haughtiness is as stylish as a balloon payment.
Club owners are searching for a new nightlife formula, something that jibes with the culture’s low-key mood and yet shakes free whatever is left of the city’s disposable income.
“People are still looking for what is the right approach here going forward,” Mr. Rabin said. “There is a lot of uncertainty.”
Ideas differ, but the owners agree on one thing: the word “club” has about as much cultural relevance as the Macarena. The turn of the millennium saw the rise of bottle service and the $18 cocktail at glittery spots like Marquee, Tenjune and Bungalow 8, which attracted celebrities and models, and then charged regular folks a fortune to rub elbows, and sometimes knees, with them.
Now, said, Mark Caldwell, author of “New York Night: The Mystique and Its History,” the city seems to have passed into one of its in-between eras, too much money and glitz having poisoned whatever youthful edginess club culture once had. Now, some want to be friendly and inclusive. In Chinatown, Santos Party House, an 8,000 square foot dance club that opened last year, has few tables, $10 cocktails, and a no exclusionary door policy. The point of the dance club seems to be dancing. At Avenue, it’s not only the word club that’s forbidden. Don’t use the term “bottle service,” either — even though bottles, starting around $350 each, are served in silver buckets accompanied by a variety of mixers in glass pitchers, a practice that has been known for years as bottle service.
Backlash to bottle service anyone?
- The Memory Hole
At a time when I find it so odd and indifferent that Big Brother is no longer a concept, but a harsh reality, I find irony in the news in the New York Times eerily disturbing but not surprising. This excerpt from the Times speaks for itself. ”In George Orwell’s “1984,” government censors erase all traces of news articles embarrassing to Big Brother by sending them down an incineration chute called the “memory hole.” The memory hole……………….who could forget? I’ll make a list. Nothing to do with nightclub design or design for that matter but indeed an interesting read.
On Friday, it was “1984” and another Orwell book, “Animal Farm,” that were dropped down the memory hole, byAmazon.com.
In a move that angered customers and generated waves of online pique, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of the books from the Kindle devices of readers who had bought them.
An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers,” he said.
Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.
Customers whose books were deleted indicated that MobileReference, a digital publisher, had sold them. An e-mail message to SoundTells, the company that owns MobileReference, was not immediately returned.
Digital books bought for the Kindle are sent to it over a wireless network. Amazon can also use that network to synchronize electronic books between devices — and apparently to make them vanish.
An authorized digital edition of “1984” from its American publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, was still available on the Kindle store Friday night, but there was no such version of “Animal Farm.”
People who bought the rescinded editions of the books reacted with indignation, while acknowledging the literary ironies involved. “Of all the books to recall,” said Charles Slater, an executive with a sheet-music retailer in Philadelphia, who bought the digital edition of “1984” for 99 cents last month. “I never imagined that Amazon actually had the right, the authority or even the ability to delete something that I had already purchased.”
Antoine Bruguier, an engineer in Silicon Valley, said he had noticed that his digital copy of “1984” appeared to be a scan of a paper edition of the book. “If this Kindle breaks, I won’t buy a new one, that’s for sure,” he said.
Amazon appears to have deleted other purchased e-books from Kindles recently. Customers commenting on Web forums reported the disappearance of digital editions of the Harry Potter books and the novels of Ayn Rand over similar issues.
Amazon’s published terms of service agreement for the Kindle does not appear to give the company the right to delete purchases after they have been made. It says Amazon grants customers the right to keep a “permanent copy of the applicable digital content.”
Retailers of physical goods cannot, of course, force their way into a customer’s home to take back a purchase, no matter how bootlegged it turns out to be. Yet Amazon appears to maintain a unique tether to the digital content it sells for the Kindle.
“It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t even count on still having my books tomorrow.”
Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.
On the Internet, of course, there is no such thing as a memory hole. While the copyright on “1984” will not expire until 2044 in the United States, it has already expired in other countries, including Canada, Australia and Russia. Web sites in those countries offer digital copies of the book free to all comers.
Well that was mighty nice of them.
- Stranger in a Strange Land
This book is a must read for anyone. Simply, the story line is this: Crew members of the Envoy, the first human attempt to travel to Mars. Their ship survives the trip to Mars, but then ceases transmission, and their fate is unknown for the next 20 years. The plot summary is a little more detached and surreal but non the less fetching. Valentine Michael Smith is the son of two of the eight astronauts of an ill-fated first human expedition to the planet Mars. Orphaned when the crew died (the full story of how this happened is not portrayed, but his parents were unambiguously murdered by his mother’s husband, who later committed suicide), a very Miami sub plot! Smith is raised in the culture of the native inhabitants of the planet, beings whose minds live in another world. Each day I spend in Miami I feel more and more like I arrived here as a crew member on the Envoy. In 1999 I was part of a magical time and crew that created one of the most infamous and well respected and recognized nightlife experiences in Miami, if not the United States. I met so many people whom I thought were good, just and right and many were. The good ones, the bad ones they were all crew members. I took them all in. We were all stuck, together as misfits in a strange land and somehow for a moment in time together and for just a moment we became fits. It just worked. Today, as I look back on my time on Mars, metaphorically I realize now that the things in the mirror that are the most disturbing are the crew members who lurk low and hide in the shadows. Like many influential works of literature, Stranger made a contribution to the language: specifically, the word “grok.” In Heinlein’s invented Martian language, “grok” literally means “to drink” and figuratively means “to understand,” “to love,” and ”to be one with.” One dictionary description was “To understand thoroughly through having empathy with”. I will one day, probably sooner than later write a piece. Perhaps not a long piece but a piece. I was approached by New York Magazine to give the skinny on the true inside story of crobar New York. At the time and still the underbelly of night life is a a sorid rotting place that appears to be full of light but can be dark and dank where the scum and bottom feeders can flourish and prosper. The good ones that do survive are not always what they appear. I have had an amazing career and met remarkable people and have seen so clearly. Just short of seeing star ships off Orion. One thing i know for sure. Simply, a good man is a good man. A bad man can easily wear a good mans suit but will indeed always be a bad man no matter what the suit. I “grok” that. Read the book or wait for the piece.
- Mushrooms for the salon of the bourgeoisie: In memory of Pierre Paulin
Sandra Hofmeister writes an amazing tribute to an amazing designer and humanitarian. What would the world of design be without Pierre Paulin? Many of his designs have already become timeless icons, avant-garde and classic at the same time. In spite of having every good reason to let people celebrate him as the designer of the Grande Nation, the Frenchman always considered his own achievements to be marginal. A fondness of experimentation and curiosity characterize his unmistakable signature style, be it in the halls for Georges Pompidou in the Elysée Palace or in the curved lines of the Flower Chair made of transparent polycarbonate that was presented only this year in Milan. Pierre Paulin died at the age of 81 on June 13, 2009 in Montpellier. His visions will live on.
“My professional conviction is that I wanted to avoid traditional production,” the son of a French father and Swiss mother once explained. This conviction becomes manifest in the furniture and rooms, irons and aircraft interiors he designed, alongside many other things. With inexorable drive Pierre Paulin sounded out the limits of what was possible, and in doing so created utopian but at the same time user-oriented worlds that were intended for normal everyday life just as much as for a banquet given by the French President. Born in Paris in 1927, Pierre Paulin studied at the École Camondo and was, in his early years, inspired by Scandinavian design, Charles and Ray Eames and Florence Knoll. In 1953 he presented his first own furniture collection at the household goods trade fair in Paris. At that time he crafted the CM141 desk - a minimalist desk with slender steel legs and reduced wooden drawers - with his father. Last year Ligne Roset started producing this classic again as a re-edition under the name “Tanis”.
Bigtime Design and I share a couple of things with Pierre. Grey hair and a passion for materials and their somewhat obtuse renderings in contemporary design. I encourage any designer worth a dime (fabricated out of polycarbonate of course) to spend a minute or two and read the entire article and i promise an inspiring read. enjoy. to the artice….
- New Times Broward Readers’ Choice: Exit 66 Best Dance Club
Exit 66 has been voted the best dance club in Broward and Palm Beach counties!
Mark from New Times Broward says : “Exit 66 brings a new and improved meaning to beauty, elegance, and downright intensity. The gorgeous people from staff to clientele kept my head turning all night. Not to mention the DJs that spun their sets — amazing!”
It is nice when a plan comes together as well as Exit 66. Just a month old, this baby has barely been spanked and named. In keeping with the crobar worldwide tradition, crobar’s latest addition to club world seems to have legs. And nice ones at that.
- Crobar: ‘The Making of a Mega Club’
I just recently watched the documetary film, Man on wire. My sister whom is a documentary film maker called me minutes after the screening in New York only to tell me, “you must travel where ever you have to travel in order to experience this film.” Naturally, being the younger brother I promised I would and never did.
The film moved me beyond words. To have a vision, a dream and purpose beyond rationality and sensability is something few people will admit to possess and accept to exist. In short, the films synopsis is as follows:
On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York’s twin towers, then the worlds tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released. Following six and a half years of dreaming of the towers, Petit spent eight months in New York City planning the execution of the coup. Aided by a team of friends and accomplices, Petit was faced with numerous extraordinary challenges: he had to find a way to bypass the WTCs security; smuggle the heavy steel cable and rigging equipment into the towers; pass the wire between the two rooftops; anchor the wire and tension it to withstand the winds and the swaying of the buildings. The rigging was done by night in complete secrecy. At 7:15 AM, Philippe took his first step on the high wire 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan James Marshs documentary brings Petits extraordinary adventure to life through the testimony of Philippe himself, and some of the co-conspirators who helped him create the unique and magnificent spectacle that became known as the artistic crime of the century.
I had a not so similar experience in my journey in creating crobar New York. Thou far from walking a wire 100 stories in the air, the wind up, the journey for me was my wire. My sister and her co-producers shot the making of a mega club which captures some of the compelling behind the scenes drama and dreams it took to accomplish such a monumental feat. Not just a nightclub design story, thou nightclub design and some of the dreams are aptly illustrated in the journey of a team.
‘Crobar, The making of a mega club’ follows the planning,construction and gala opening of New York’s hot, new megaclub. Part ‘Trading Spaces’ and ‘Studio 54, ‘ the video will feature interviews with nightclub designer Callin Fortis and Kenny Smith, co-owners of Crobar. Directed by Bill Marpet and produced by Cherie Fortis and Vicky Bugbee, the 70 plus hours of footage will be edited at B Productions into a feature length documentary and series.
What occurs to me, after watching Man on Wire, is one thing. There is a little of Philippe Petit in all of us. Just don’t look down. To view the film……
- Inroducing: Pug Doe
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Pug Doe
If you are expecting some spark or new tip on nightclub design or how the tony Mondrian Hotel was received or what is being creating for the all new and improved Betsy Hotel make over in South Beach, you are about to be sadly mistaken. Instead of tid bits and nuggets on international night club design, you get a dog tale.
For those of you who care I am guilty of absentee blogging; A Tom Peters no no. With that said, I am back on track and at full speed. Some months ago, my friend and furniture designer Tim Collins sent me a random text message with a call back tag……ASAP. I called him back and was stunned to hear what he had to say. He told me that his assistant had witnessed a man stop at a red light, catch his eye, open his door and dump a dog on the street. The assistant whose name is Josh expressed that had witnessed the devil in disguise. He not only dumped a dog, like a piece of south Florida Taco Bell trash, he dumped “the” dog. Not just any dog, though indeed any dog counts in a hillbilly death nell. He dumped a pug.
As my blog is aptly named Mister P’s blog herewith photo attached, I was horrified at the call and the reality of human nature at its worst.
The Pug arrived at my home Sunday eve. After a short get together with Mister P, who graciously welcomed him to his home, they quickly snoozed and canoodled the first night they shared. So far, so good.
Skip to next morning: Sunrise camera, Miami. Splash, splash-pounding water as “the new guy” walked into the pool. Close to drowning I scooped him up dried him off and took him to the vet.
Turns out, the new guy can’t see very well. The vets, thou gracious in realizing the humanizing and somewhat pathetic story wouldn’t check him in without a name. The lovely Latina, and I do mean Latina at the front desk, refused to let me pass without a name for the new Buddha boy. I was truly stunned at her ignorance. ”How would I know his name? I asked.” As she had just heard the story with the rest of them was her hearing at fault? When she stated that “he has to have a name and he can’t come in for treatment without one,” my response was simply: ”I’m sure he has a name but he just didn’t share it with me.” At that point, she turned cold as ice and dumb as a stone. Good for ice cream, not so good for a vet. After a minute in a Miami stand off, I suggested a compromise. I suggested that had the little one been God’s creature of a human kind who was admitted to an ER as a male with no name, no ID and no family they would have tagged him John Doe by law I believe. At this, she stared blankly. The duh duh no a me a speaka engles fired me up with all my creative juices flowing. My reply to her was simple………Lets call him PUG DOE. Her response in perfect English by the way was simple. How do you spell it?
Hence, my new guy, my new friend and companion is now known simply as PUG DOE. He is a good boy, an old soul. After an enormous emotional and financial commitment from me, he can see albeit somewhat compromised and can at least recognize good from evil. A lesson we can all learn, regardless of name.
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