Micky's Nightclub

8857, Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA, United States

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Micky's Nightclub

8857, Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA, United States

Firm

Type

Hospitality + Sport › Bar/Nightclub

YEAR

2009

This project explores the “coming out”
of a space in the urban family. Like a
family hiding their gay child, society, directly or indirectly, often regulated
gay and lesbian neighborhoods into the least desirable areas of its
community. That same societal shame was
often reflected in the dark and uninviting architecture of those neighborhoods.
Emerging from the shadows of yesterday,
this bar’s interior is flooded with natural daylight via skylights and glass
floors. Twenty-foot-wide full-height
doors invite everyone in, while lighting effects communicate the “high energy”
of the inside environment to the outside viewer – an “out” building existing in
a synergetic equilibrium with the urban transit corridor along which it
resides.
Features like columns, back bar, bar
tops, etc., use the latest in lighting effects and materials to virtually glow
from within. Using a full spectrum of
rainbow colors, these items adjust to continually provide an endless backdrop
of environments, from holiday themes to special events, and to share these
environments openly with the streetscape beyond.
How has the change in society’s views
on homosexuality been reflected in its architecture? This building is unsympathetically, unashamedly and
unapologetically “out” to its neighbors.
Perhaps, in the end, the biggest revelation is the lack of disruption
this building’s “coming out” has made in its urban family, acknowledging that
much has changed indeed.