Nightclubs can be defined as a party place to forget about daily life and share a collective moment through music, dance with a “let go” state of mind. They are also a technical space through motorised lights, smoke machines, lasers, speakers, LEDs screens… This invisible system is mainly here to generate effects and make the collective transe grow. Catharine Rossi, design historian, speaks to us about the links between nightclubs and technical aesthetic.
Units Research Review : How did you start doing research about nightclub history ?
Catharine Rossi : I am a design historian with a strong interest about Italian design & architecture, in particular stories that haven’t been told before. A few years ago, I came across a photograph of a dance floor in an italian nightclub where some architects were growing vegetables inside. I was intrigued by this shot and through my research I found that this place was called Space Electronic, which opened in 1969 in Florence and was designed by Gruppo 9999 (Giorgio Birelli, Carlo Caldini, Fabrizio Fiumi and Paolo Galli). This nightclub fascinated me because it was designed by architects associated with Radical Design approach. These architects aren’t normally seen to have built anything; their work was more about experimenting with images, models, exhibition & films, but with Space Electronic it was clear they were actually creating building: a nightclub. It is through this kind of hidden history of discos as spaces for architecture experimentation that I first came to this subject.
U.R.R : Could you explain how the nightclub became a topic in design and architecture concerning new space development and the rise of a new aesthetic ?
C.R : I see the nightclub as a very particular type of architecture. In the 1960’s - 1970’s there was a new type of space, one made with artificial light and sound, where people come at night to dance collectively. These places emerged with the rise of new technologies, new youth culture and new music of the post WWII period. People have of course been going out for centuries, and there have been spaces such as jazz clubs and dance halls, but the difference of nightclub the use of technology to create a new type of space. The architects were attracted by the newness of it; there were no rules, which led them to experiment. Architects and designers saw this as a hidden place, mainly animated during night, which offered a new expression of freedom.
U.R.R : You described the Haçienda, a closed Manchester club as an “industrial theatre style”, could you explain where this aesthetic came from and what were the intention of the designers Ben Kelly and Peter Saville ?
C.R : When i say it is industrial, it was quite deliberate with the design references that Ben Kelly was bringing into it. For example, he introduced some bollards with black and yellow stripes around the dancefloor, along with some cat’s eyes, designed for motorways. The goal was to put the visual language of industrial artifacts inside of the club. It was also a theatre - in the nightclub everybody becomes some kind of a performer, and in the Haçienda you can see they used theatre lighting. This aesthetic also came from Factory Records, which is the music label behind the Haçienda. This label was born in Manchester, the birthplace of industry in Britain, which was a very post-industrial city, in decline, at the time of the club’s opening.
If we look at other spaces, with for example the rave scene in the 1980’s-1990’s, the philosophy was about occupying industrial spaces such as factories or warehouses with minimum treatment to turn it into a club for one night with lights, projection and music. The interesting thing is if we look at spaces like the Tresor in Berlin is the rough use of concrete, metal bars in a post industrial context. These spaces are indeed connected with the music, which is itself quite industrial with Hard Techno or Gabber scene : it seems very fitting to have a hard space when you’re listening to hard music.
U.R.R : Can you explain how the nightclubs technical systems are built to foster social interaction & collective transe ?
C.R : To think historically, nightclubs are dependent on the electrification of our cities, so if there is no electricity we would not be able to create those artificial environments. The nightclub is a more extreme version of how technology has enabled our modern existence. The nightclub takes the potential of technology to transform our experiences into an incredible degree. One of the quote I really like is from Simon Reynolds in the book Energy Flash where the author talks about rave music and qualifies it through an “affective charge quality”. I see technologies such as lighting, projectors, and speakers as machines that create this “affective charge”.
U.R.R : How do you see nowadays nightclubs development ? Are they still nightclubs ?
C.R : In the UK in between 2005 and 2016 over half of nightclubs closed. Nowadays there is a more important focus on daytime raves, which is what the key club Printworks offers, and festivals. clubs like Oval Space in East London offer other activities such as exhibition or co-working spaces : the club is no long only a club, it is now a multifunctional space due to a pragmatic cost effect of renting spaces in London.
I think one of the most interesting new opening is the club Josephine in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris which opened in 2019. In 2017, Ben Kelly and Virgil Abloh designed in London an installation exhibition called “Ruin” which showcased some kind of a ruined nightclub. The interesting point is that this ruined nightclub has now become the Josephine club inside an old theatre : it is like a metaphor to what happened to nightclubs : whatever happens the club culture keeps coming back.
U.R.R : You compare nightclubs as a black boxes : could you elaborate on this image inducing a “complex system or device whose internal workings are hidden or not readily understood” ?
C.R : That is because literally, nightclubs are often black boxes, which enable the space to disappear when the technology is switched on; when you’re in the moment, at 3 in the morning you are not meant to see the architecture or the technology which is producing the atmosphere, but just to feel the effect. Both nightclub architecture, and technology, are rather opaque in this sense; we feel the effect, but don’t see how this is created.
