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Building: A Nightclub Is it Building or is it Powerhouse? Welcome to Manhattan�s 1990s hotspot, an end of the century club installed in an end of the last century building. By Justin Henderson SEPTEMBER 1990 � Has New York�s night life reached the point of exhaustion? Is the party over? No�but the party always changes. After the retro decadence of the booming, corrupt, and ostentatious 1980s, this new decade demands something a little less frivolous; and so onto the scene comes Building aka Powerhouse, a dance club that occupies a former electrical substation on a non-descript lower midtown block. The designer is Carlos Almada, a transplanted Argentine architect, and this is his take on the 90s: �A hot club represents the mood of a moment. There is a new generation, with new values. This generation is about producing things, rather than showing off. You don�t do Louis XV in hard times, and so this space is about basic elements, and raw design.� A raw and ragged empty cube to begin with, one million dollars later we have the latest in New York clubs, where resin was layered over the paint-flaking ceiling, 38 feet above the dance floor, to immortalize its half-decaying state. But a million bucks buys well-orchestrated rawness. The furniture, for instance, is straightforward American design, but it isn�t low-budget: seating in the lounges located on two of the four levels is by Wright, Knoll, Charles Eames, and Carlos Almada himself. The space is organized on multiple levels: the basement level contains the entry, restrooms, coat check, and a lounge; the dance floor is a few steps higher, between cellar and middle levels, and includes a 100 foot long curved bar on one side of the dance floor. The middle level includes a bar and an original catwalk which has been extended all the way around the interior, offering a view down onto the dance floor. Finally, overlooking all is the upper mezzanine, with a lounge and a railed in balcony. The materials overlaid on the original interior are simple, essential: steel and mahogany predominate, along with stained plywood, glass, and painted concrete. Designer Daniel Berglund has created a variety of custom lighting fixtures that incorporate such disparate elements as colanders and woks, to provide the (mostly low level) incandescent illumination. |
� Interiors 1990