The Parabola of Italian Discotheques: ... NIGHT: DOMAINS ASCOSI LASCITI The Parabola of Italian Discotheques: Between Radical Architecture and Spaghetti Dance

Eleonora Diamanti once the light is on it has come to an end. But the architecture stays. Italian disco culture I like the night, I actually love it saw more than 7,000 discotheques dispersed I see so many sunrises and very few around its territory into the 1980s,2 only about mornings, 2,500 of which have survived until today.3 The night has adopted me and offered A few of them are still running; others have me a job changed function, but many of them have shut that I like a lot, indeed I adore. down and been abandoned. My name is JOVANOTTI and I’m a deejay In recent years, growing interest I never go to sleep before six a.m. in the long-ignored “parabola” of Italian –Jovanotti1 discotheques, from the 1960s to the present, has led to the rise of art works, research Atmosphere. When you talk or write about projects, and books. The 2014 Venice Biennale Babaloo, Potenza Picena (MC). nightlife and discotheques, you feel an urge officially opened the door for discos to enter Photo Credit: Alessandro Tesei, Ascosi Lasciti, 2014. to recall their atmospheric environments in the Olympus of Art and Architecture, with order to describe them. The senses and the a big A. For the MondoItalia pavilion at the bodily experience of the discotheque are Arsenale in Venice, the Biennale showcased deeply entangled with its atmosphere: scent, projects foregrounding the current socio- light, sound, movement, touch, and memories. cultural situation of architecture in the country Because going to the discotheque is an today, and there was a focus on the night and ephemeral experience that you do in the dark, Italian disco culture. A number of projects 134 SCAPEGOAT 10 135 ... Between Radical Architecture and Spaghetti Dance NIGHT: DOMAINS technological tools and techniques for better of time-oriented politics in the context of understanding and implementing temporal urbanism.11 These first experimentations politics.8 In 1990, law 142/90 was adopted in produced an awareness not only of questions order to make it possible for municipalities to of work-life balance, gender equality, and coordinate public services hours with citizens regulation of the relationship between work needs. Following the law, which established time and private time, but also of temporal that cities with more than 30,000 inhabitants issues in city planning, especially concerning create time-related offices, some Italian the nighttime economy. Following these cities such as Milan, Venice, Rome, Genoa, first steps and amidst growth in the role of Catania, and Bolzano created the Ufficio tempi the nighttime economy, other countries and della città dedicated to time management in cities, especially in France and the Netherlands urban areas. As sociologist Sandra Bonfiglioli who today lead the field, began to approach recalls, the need to reconcile working time temporal politics with a particular focus on the (Above, right) Babaloo, Potenza Picena (MC). Photo Credit: Alessandro Tesei, Ascosi Lasciti, 2014. with private time, especially for women night, to the point that over the last ten years struggling with the competing requirements many European cities have adopted “nighttime were commissioned and displayed, all of by photographer Giovanna Silva, delved into of family and career, shifted from being a mayors” and held public debates about them treating discos as an experimental and the history and evolution of experimental personal condition to a collective matter, and nighttime economies and cultures.12 radical object of research and investigation for architecture in Italian discotheques from 1960 so became the centre of political debates.9 understanding contemporary Italian nightlife to 1990, as well as the following crisis that Inspired by law 142/90, in 1990 the National RADICAL DISCOS BETWEEN 1960 AND 1970 culture. A project called Space Electronics forced many of them to close their doors. Women’s Section of the Italian Communist Then and Now, curated by researcher Other recent and ongoing photographic Party proposed a draft law called: “Women The interest in the architecture and design of Catharine Rossi, dealt with the Radical projects have drawn on this crisis, portraying Change Times.” Following these struggles, law Italian discotheques, as an object of study and Architecture movement that characterized the the decadence and ruin of many abandoned 53/2000 was adopted in 2000 (also known research outside the experimental and avant- nocturnal atmosphere of avant-garde discos Italian discos around the country today, such as legge Turco, after Livia Turco, a prominent garde movement, can be traced back to the in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. The project as Paradise Discotheque (by Antonio La Grotta, politician who supported it), which had two 1990s, the same period in which the public focused particularly on Space Electronic, a third place at Sony World Photography Awards major items: the first was mostly aimed at debate on temporal politics was taking place. discotheque designed by Gruppo 9999 in 1969 2015–architecture category), as well as blogs regulating parental leave, while the second Fulvio Ferrari’s milestone book Discoteca that is still running in Florence. In late 2015– like Memories on a Dancefloor (by Jessica had a broader focus on temporal coordination 1968: L’architettura straordinaria appeared early 2016, Rossi also co-curated, with Sumitra Da Ros) and Ascosi Lasciti (by Alessandro and regulation in urban areas with the in 1989, celebrating the radical design of Upham, a broader exhibit on the Radical Tesei).5 The liminal, lunatic, hidden-yet-visible institution of a “Fund for Time Harmonization nightclubs in the 1960s and 1970s. Interviewed Architecture movement and discotheques aspect of the discotheque has begun receiving in the City” (Fondo per l’armonizzazione by Giovanna Silva following the 2014 Venice at the Institute for Contemporary Arts attention at a moment when interest in the dei tempi delle città) and Time Banks. While Biennale, Ferrari underlines the ephemerality (ICA) in London, under the title “Radical nightlife economy is growing at an impressive the first part of the law on parental leave of a nightclub’s existence and aesthetic: “As Disco: Architecture and Nightlife in Italy rhythm, and in a country that in the 1980s was foregrounded and implemented, the I was preparing the book Discoteca 1968. 1965–1975.” At the 2014 Biennale, Italian and 1990s was at the forefront of nocturnal second proposition on urban time regulation L’architettura straordinaria (Allemandi 1990) it magazine Zero presented Notte Italiana: experimentation in the cultural and political was never developed in its entirety, due to dawned on me that the nightclubs of my early online project collecting stories by architects, scenes.6 further changes in the ruling government. The years no longer existed. A club needs to be DJs, musicians, event promoters, designers, From the mid-1980s through the 1990s, legge Turco established that Italian regions consistently revamped; it must continuously musical producers, and researchers, as well as Italian municipal politics turned its attention adopt specific time-oriented local norms for transform so as to be up-to-the-minute.”13 movies and soundtracks of Italian disco culture to the temporal dimension, thanks to the temporal coordination between public and The first discotheques of the 1960s since the 1960s.4 Artists Marco Fusinato, work done by academics, feminist activists, private services, creating an office and a wider were born out of the avant-garde architectural Felicity D. Scott, and Mark Wasiuta produced and workers’ unions, opening the door to territorial plan for time regulation, as well movement that emerged during this time, and the installation La fine del mondo, bringing what the geographer Luc Gwiazdzinski has as time banks to improve “solidarity in local which in 1966 artist and art critic Germano to dialogue the radical aesthetics of 1960s called “chrono-urbanism”: an urbanism that communities.”10 The law provided a general Celant referred to as “Radical Architecture.” discotheques, specifically Turin’s Piper Club, looks at time management as a collective and pioneering framework on urban time Members of this movement were especially with the antagonistic politics of occupied issue in urban areas.7 During this time, the regulation and coordination, without interested in the design of objects and and self-managed social centers in Milan, Italian Ministry for Scientific and Technological specifying guidelines or procedures for situations, in the creation of atmospheres such as Leoncavallo, Cox18, and Virus. Finally, Research funded time-oriented academic applying the law at a local level. However, this through the interplay of technology a visual installation called Nightswimming, projects that led to the development of was a turning point that led to discussions and multimedia. Groups such as UFO, 136 SCAPEGOAT 10 137 The Parabola of Italian Discotheques: ... NIGHT: DOMAINS

MEMORIES ON THE DANCEFLOOR

Garden, Ponte della Priula (TV). Photo Credit: Jessica da Ross, Memories on the Dancefloor, 2012. Divina, Caraglio (CN). Photo Credit: Jessica da Ross, Memories on the Dancefloor, 2013.

Gheodrome, San Mauro a Mare (FC). Photo Credit: Jessica da Ross, Ciao Ciao, Marano Vicentino (VI). Photo Credit: Jessica da Ross, Memories on the Dancefloor, 2014. Memories on the Dancefloor, 2015.

(Above, right) Piper2000, Viareggio (LU). Photo Credit: Jessica da Ross, Memories on the Dancefloor, 2015

138 SCAPEGOAT 10 139 ... Between Radical Architecture and Spaghetti Dance NIGHT: DOMAINS Superstudio, Gruppo 9999, and Archizoom memorable discos of the time have their roots the study of architecture as a form of media, this univocal and categorical relationship originated in such conditions, and out of all- in universities and research. Many schools of challenging the notion of “function.”16 By that predominated in past architectural forms, night discussions. Their aesthetic choices architecture at that time contained influential time, disappointed by the modernist theories precluding all kinds of unforeseen, new, and had a political bent: they were interested thinkers, and were starting to be occupied in architecture, the very idea that a function of emerging interpretations of space and genres in questioning the established norms of by students who formed groups that would a building could be at once not only denotative combinations. The discotheque, or piper, as cultural production, seeking social change, then be identified as part of the avant-garde (primary function) but also connotative it was named after the first night-club that and challenging the role of architecture in movement. Moreover, the ’68 effect in Italy (secondary functions), gave much inspiration opened in Rome in 1965, opened up the field modern Italian society. The design magazines lasted longer than in other countries, such to these young artists who felt liberated in to new interdisciplinary intersections, as well Domus and Casabella also played a vital role as France and the United States, expanding their experimentations with changing and as relational and changing ecologies between for the movement as “radical magazines,” through the late 1970s with the subsequent mutable design objects and spaces, which space and time. And the design of pipers foregrounding work of the avant-garde groups radicalization of activist and militant groups. were open to multiple interpretations.17 In was the task that Savioli gave to students for and students.14 In their pages we can read the This particular social context allowed for a the preface to the catalogue of The Italian their final work. The course was centred on stories of radical architects, their aesthetico- span of ten years of design and architectural Metamorphosis, 1943–1968, an exhibition the theme “space and participation,”20 and political values and counter-design strategies. projects by young artists eager to innovate and organized at the Guggenheim museum in New aimed at proposing a new kind of participation According to Antonio Negri, Italy at that time discard prevalent architectural, socio-cultural, York in 1994, Umberto Eco writes about his within the built environment, starting from was going through a “magazine period,” and aesthetico-political codes and paradigms. experience during these years in the School of the architectural project itself. Students when magazines, leaflets, and posters were The schools of architecture at the Architecture at the University of Florence: were asked to design spaces wherein users the preferred media for circulating new and Universities of Florence and Turin, as well We spent nights discussing things could actively relate and operate, being burgeoning theories and ideas. This happened as the Polytechnic University of Milan, were together; ideas were provoked by themselves able to create constantly changing not only in the context of the worker and extremely active during this decade. In visual offerings; the visual offerings environments based on the relationship student movements, but also in the field of particular, the School of Architecture at the were determined according to the between space, time, and their individual or design and architecture. However, beyond University of Florence saw the formation of spaces; the spaces were delineated collective presence. Such research projects Domus and Casabella, and occasional articles many groups of students exploring design on the basis of sound suggestions were the playground for the realization of published in other Italian magazines, the and architectural thinking in different and given by the musicians. […] At the experimental discos throughout Il bel paese. radical movement didn’t receive much local radically new ways. They were influenced not time I was teaching in the Department Piper (1965, Rome, by M. F. Cavalli and attention until it was internationally acclaimed only by architects such as Leonardo Savioli, of Architecture at the University G. Capolei), Piper (1966, Turin, by Gruppo by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but also by thinkers from other disciplines of Florence. I remember that the Strum), Barbarella (1972, Dubbione di Pinasca, with the 1972 exhibition “Italy: The New such as Umberto Eco.15 The Italian semiotician Archizoom group had already appeared by Studio65), Bamba Issa (1969, Forte dei Domestic Landscape.” The MOMA celebrated was at that time teaching at the School of even before the start of the events of Marmi, by Gruppo UFO), L’Altro Mondo the Radical Architecture movement overseas Architecture of the University of Florence 1968, while the UFO group emerged Club (1967, Rimini, by Gruppo Strum), Space by showcasing Italian interior design through and played a substantial role in its theoretical during the occupation of the university… Electronic (1969, Florence, by Gruppo 9999), objects, interior spaces, and commodities, approach to design. With the growing interest Architecture departments became and Mach 2 (1967, Florence, by Superstudio) though very little attention was given to in mass media and popular culture, at the the arena in which everything was were some of the first nightclubs that discotheques. time Eco was engaged in expanding the role debated, because the architect felt began populating Italian cities in the 1960s. During this decade, the first discos of semiotics, the study of the production and responsible for society as a whole.18 These spaces were home to what Tommaso were sites for interdisciplinary intersections interpretation of signs, outside the linguistic Trini defined at the time, in a 1968 Domus between music, design, visual art, circle. He provided these young architects, During that time, architect Leonardo Savioli article, as divertimentifici (entertainment performance, theatre, and many other forms who were looking to broaden their horizons was teaching in the same department as factories). The term was not yet imbued with of art and nightlife experiences. Influenced and were frustrated by the crisis of modernism Eco, and the notion of “function” was at the a dysphoric aura, as it later would be in the by American pop art, British music and in architecture, with an answer. Together heart of his research as well. His course in 1980s, and it still referred to a kind of wonder architectural experimentations (such as the with Marshal McLuhan—who published his Interior Design for the academic year 1966– and amusement in relation to the discos’ Archigram group), the Viennese avant-garde influential works in the 1960s (The Gutenberg 67 questioned the relationship between potential to create a new aesthetico-political (including the radical architects Hans Hollein Galaxy, 1962; Understanding Media, 1964; The built space and “users,” re-thinking the paradigm. As Fulvio Ferrari writes in Discoteca and Walter Pichler), as well an expanding Medium is the Message, 1967)—Eco examined one-dimensional notion of function in 1968, “the spell of conceiving a disco is to mass media culture, the peculiarity of the first the emerging mass media, and proposed a architecture.19 Savioli aimed to discard design something that stays under, under our nightclubs that arose in this period in Italy is reading of the city and architecture through the one-to-one association between the conscious, where you feel immersed in the deeply linked to the historical moment and the lenses of communication and media formal, aesthetic, and material aspects fluid of your unknown origins, where the magic socio-cultural background. In particular, the theories. For his course on visual language of a building, and its precise function and of lights and sounds that disorient you is part design and architecture of some of the most at the University of Florence, Eco proposed related use. According to the architect, of a project that no Polytechnic can initiate.”21 140 SCAPEGOAT 10 141 The Parabola of Italian Discotheques: ... NIGHT: DOMAINS Discos allowed, then, not only for “Life, Death, and Miracles of Architecture.”24 the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. In flexibility concerning issues such as noise the application of new theories learned For this event, they created a vegetable garden the meantime, the aesthetics of discos, as complaints that discos may attract in city and practiced in academic circles, but on Space Electronic’s dance floor, a project well as their relationship to the politics of centres. The Italian musical scene actively also the emergence of interdisciplinary that would be showcased at the 1972 MOMA the night, had changed. The socio-political participated in this new disco economy, experimentations no longer possible in exhibit celebrating the Radical Architecture scene experienced a drastic shift, from the producing what became internationally other architectural contexts. The Piper in movement. Created out of an old engine repair dreamlike expressions of cultural potential known as Italo-Disco, or more sardonically, Turin was a perfect example of this, as a shop and “furnished with discarded washing and the economic boom which marked “Spaghetti-Dance,” as the documentary flight of musical stairs conceived by Sergio drums, refrigerator casings, and the latest the rapid industrialization and post-war “Italo-Disco: The Sound of Spaghetti Dance” Liberovici welcomed people to the dance technologies,”25 Space Electronic is one of reconstruction of the 1960s, to the harsh by Pierpaolo De Iulis suggests.29 New disco floor. The music was generated by bodies the few discos of the era to have survived the reality and radicalization of social movements professionals were born out of this rising moving on the stairs, through photoelectric massive disco-culture explosion of the late in the 1970s. Italy was at that point the economy, including PR professionals, event cells and a combination of forty tracks 1970s and 1980s, and the subsequent crisis leading country in industrial design, and its organizers, disco owners, DJs, and other combined randomly by body movement. period. Researcher and curator Catharine specific economic configuration was tied to characters who populated the night. In 1991, Bruno Munari had designed a light machine Rossi has discussed the role that Space its geography and characterised by small- and Jovanotti, Italian DJ and songwriter, released that shifted through a longitudinal rail hung Electronic, as well as other discos designed medium-sized factories concentrated mostly the track “Gente della notte” (people of on the ceiling and projected four different by radical architects, played in Italian nightlife in the north of the country, with consequent the night), a quote from which opens this luminous effects on the walls. Other rails on and architectural culture, in the 2014 Venice internal migration from the south. Slowly, essay, reflecting the burgeoning disco the ceiling and walls permitted the adding Biennale and her more recent ICA exhibition designers started to leave big factories and culture of this decade. Moreover, discos of projectors, lights, other objects, and art in London. Reflecting upon the evolution and companies to open their own studios in cities, were in the process of diversifying their works. The floor could be re-shaped through legacy of such a space, and on the situation especially in Milan, which became the global offerings with restaurants, swimming pools, mobile parallelepiped structures, creating of Italian discos today, she asks: “Is Space design capital. According to Negri, during this shops, and other services in their space. multiple layers and stages for shows.22 There Electronic a metaphor for Italy for the apparent decade “Milan became a productive metropolis In the 1980s, more than 7,000 discos were no boundaries between artistic forms disappearance of an earlier radical energy? and we experienced the passage from the opened in Italy, a proliferation that continued here, just as there were no limits to design But who is to say whether what happens in, ‘mass worker’ through the ‘social worker’ to into the 1990s. La Riviera Romagnola on the experimentations—interdisciplinarity was or outside, of Space Electronic is more or less the ‘cognitive worker’.”28 The young designers Adriatic coast became the setting of the the key word. Fulvio Ferrari again provides radical in the 1970s or today?”26 of the avant-garde left the experimental new Italian nightlife, with discos such as Baia a useful account of these cross-disciplinary In the mid-1970s the radical movement circles and joined the new cognitive economy, Imperiale (1984, Gabicce Monte, by Studio experiments and their protagonists: “Artists saw a dramatic shift, as did discos. Piper while discos, reacting to a newly burgeoning Tausani Ferrini and Lucchi); Bounty (1991, moved easily in this laboratory. Mario Merz and similar venues that survived became more nighttime entertainment economy, were Rimini, by Antonello Mambelli,); Cocoricò used to dance with stainless steel columns; commercial and less experimental. Space infected by the contagious “night-fever” of (1989, Riccione, by Alessandra Brunelli and Marisa used to smile; Pistoletto and Mondino Electronic bears witness to this important the late 1970s. The hidden, open, mutable, and Mirko Guidi); Embassy (1990, Rimini, by challenged each other in happenings made change, evidenced by the Biennale exhibition, radical design of 1960s–1970s nightclubs was Giuseppe Nosel); Pascià (1988, Riccione, by of talcum powder and tens of meters of as journalist Bruno Casini underlines: thus replaced by a staged architecture. Sudio Tausain, Ferrini and Lucchi), Prince polyethylene; the Living Theatre was a “In retrospect, Space Electronic (1990, Riccione, by Studio Tausain, Ferrini constant visitor.”23 enables us to follow the transition that FROM THE BOOM OF SPAGHETTI-DANCE IN and Lucchi) and later Babaloo (2000, Porto The Living Theatre, a renowned New occurred between the 60s and 70s, during 1980 TO THE RECENT CRISIS Potenza Picena). The building exterior came York-based experimental theatre company, that generational switch from beatnik to to the forefront of the new disco aesthetic, also performed at the Space Electronic in rock. Following the protests in ’77, and the In the 1980s a new disco culture arose. while in the past much more attention had Florence in 1969, together with well-known release of Saturday Night Fever, the venue Discotheques were sprouting up in every been given to interior design. The façade thus Italian theatre artists like the Nobel-prize- was transformed into a discotheque.”27 corner of Italy, leaving cities and moving became the glittery entry point to a nighttime winning Dario Fo and Franca Rame. Space During the 1970s Italy went through a period to suburban, coastal, and internal areas. experience in a grandiose interior. Electronic, designed by Gruppo 9999, was a of violent protests and repressions, and saw From the seaside to the central hills and Baia Imperiale, which opened in 1984, disco at night and an experimental school of a radicalization of the student, worker and mountains, big, glorious, and pompous discos is one of the few discos that bears witness architecture during the day, called S-Space union movements. The ten-year experience appeared, mimicking ancient Egypt or Rome, today of the grandeur of Italian nightclub (Scuola separata per l’architettura concettuale that began in 1968 mutated, and then came exotic beach resorts, luxurious boats, and culture from this era. The club, previously espansa—the Separated School for Expanded to an end in 1977. Terrorist attacks disrupted magnificent theatres. They became part of called Baia degli Angeli when it first opened Conceptual Architecture). In 1971, together the social and political scene, leading to the landscape, drawing upon the availability in 1975, is located in a building that formerly with Superstudio, Gruppo 9999 organized the a period called anni di piombo, or “years and openness of space outside urban areas, hosted a sports club, on a hilltop overlooking Mondial Festival, an exhibition dedicated to of lead,” which lasted through the end of more affordable rental costs, and greater the Adriatic coast in Gabicce Monte. As Notte 142 SCAPEGOAT 10 143 ... Between Radical Architecture and Spaghetti Dance NIGHT: DOMAINS

PARADISE DISCOTHEQUE

Marabù, Cella, Reggio-Emilia. Photo Credit: Antonio La Grotta, Paradise Discotheque, 2016. La Nave, Tarsogno Tornolo, Parma. Photo Credit: Antonio La Grotta, Paradise Discotheque, 2014-2015.

Woodpecker, Milano Marittima, Cervia. Photo Credit: Antonio La Grotta, Paradise Discotheque, 2014-2015.

(Left) Topkapi, Lido di Spina, Ferrara. Photo Credit: Antonio La Grotta, Paradise Discotheque, Marabù, Cella, Reggio-Emilia. Photo Credit: Antonio La Grotta, 2014-2015. Paradise Discotheque, 2016.

144 SCAPEGOAT 10 145 The Parabola of Italian Discotheques: ... NIGHT: DOMAINS In a redecoration carried out in 1996 the but you can’t find what you are looking citations have assumed Egyptian tones, for. It’s like an airport, or a train station with hieroglyphs recounting the story (without planes or trains to take you of the lovers Antony and Cleopatra. places): a space so huge you become Unique and inimitable, this discotheque anonymous in it. It’s like the first day at has become one of the monuments of school, only at night, and in a class of the Riviera Romagnola, drawing large 3,000. That’s entertainment in the post- numbers of dancers as well as coaches Orwell metropolis.34 filled with the merely curious, anxious to have their pictures taken in front of its Discos appeared then as the site of mass, majestic entrance.32 voluptuous, and empty entertainment, linked to the spreading consumerism of the 1980s During the 1980s, discos were celebrated and 1990s. Italy was heavily affected by this and demonized at the same time. In 1985, phenomenon of “disco-dictatorship.” The Domus published an article by Gini Alhadeff pervasive presence of discos through the titled “Il divertimentificio,” or “Factory of Italian landscape and nighttime cultural scene Entertainment” in the English translation.33 In concentrated the attention of the media. While it, Alhadeff uses the term divertimentificio in a radio stations played a big role in the spread more negative way than Trini did in the 1960s and production of disco music, television when writing about l’Altro Mondo Club and the and newspapers actively participated in the Piper in Turin. His critical article refers to the demystification of discotheques through an brand new disco opened in New York in 1985, emphasis on what was called “stragi del sabato Expò, Altavilla Vicentina (VI). Photo Credit: Antonio La Grotta, Paradise Discotheque, 2014-2015. Palladium. Previously a concert hall, Palladium sera” (Saturday night carnage), referring to was taken over by entrepreneurs Steve Rubell the nocturnal car accidents that occurred Italiana recalls: “Not even the United States spectacular: a flight of stairs decorated with a and Ian Schrager, after their success with among disco-lovers travelling to or from has had a place like Baia degli Angeli: a former fountain and Roman statues brings guests to one of the most famous New York nightclubs, clubs late at night. But if clubs were being sea-view gym with swimming pools, terraces the doors, which are flanked by fifteen-metre- Studio 54 (1977–1981). They awarded the demystified as centres of empty and pointless and ballrooms with a console in a glass tall columns. The garden contains an outdoor, commission for the Palladium’s interior design entertainment, they were being celebrated as elevator. Giancarlo Tirotti, the entrepreneur Roman-bath-like swimming pool, as well as a to the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, whose well. In 1991, the city council of Campi Bisenzio who created the Baia, was more visionary than small theatre. Through the glass walls, interior article “The Palladium: Immaterial Building” in Florence promoted the exhibition La scena Steve Rubell of the famous Studio 54, which and exterior merge in a spectacular setting: shared the same page with Alhadeff’s critical della notte (“The Night Scene”), celebrating would open in 1977.”30 With two resident the interior space of this majestic building perspective in Domus. Alhadeff writes: the design and cultural activities of the local DJs from the United States, Tom Season and fuses with breathtaking views of the Adriatic We couldn’t wait for it to open. It was disco-club Manila, together with some of the Bob Day, two consoles, and an impressive coast. Three dance floors on different levels going to be the most sophisticated club most important discotheques of the 1980s setting, in the late 1970s Baia degli Angeli welcome patrons and offer multiple music in New York: the one made with space and 1990s, including Palladium in New York, became the most famous and internationally options. Silvio San Pietro and Carlo Branzaglia done by an architect and the décor done Haçienda in Manchester, and Le Palace in renowned disco of the Italian Riviera. A laser dedicated a photographic book, Discodesign by artists. […] It was going to have more Paris. As many of its contemporaries, Manila projected into the dark sky guided night owls in Italia, to the glory of discotheque design speakers, more video screens, more was located out of town, close to Florence. through the streets that climbed the hills from during the 1980–1990s. According to the lights, more DJs, more space that any Brunella Settesoldi, town councillor of Campi the seaside. Baia degli Angeli ran through authors, Baia Imperiale is one of the main other club in New York. It does. […] But Bisenzio at the time, introduces the catalogue 1979, when a man was found dead of a drug symbols of this grandiose era, and “forms part who has more than one perfect body to of the exhibit by drawing upon the idea of overdose in the parking lot.31 The first issues of the collective imagination.” Here is how take it all in? Who has more than one discos as “scapegoats” in the debate over related to drug and alcohol abuse started they describe its interior design and the role it pair of eyes to see it all? Who has more divertimentifici, stragi del sabato sera, and haunting disco lovers. In 1984, the place re- has played in Italian discos of its time: than one pair of ears to hear it all? […] consumerism: opened under the name of Baia Imperiale The dark underground dance floor has Who are you here? A feverish molecule Can a nightclub be a place to make and expressed the grandiosity of 1980s disco been designed to conjure up the ancient in a disco dictatorship trying to catch culture and to benefit from it? In architecture. Its impressive imitation classical catacombs. The lounge itself becomes desire by the tail. But dictatorships think recent months, a debate took place architecture recalls the glory of ancient the Stage of Caesars, lending a touch or only of the masses. […] It’s like a large over opening hours, over the fact that times. The entrance and exterior settings are irony to the game of stylistic references. department store: they have everything discos are the most striking aspect of 146 SCAPEGOAT 10 147 ... Between Radical Architecture and Spaghetti Dance NIGHT: DOMAINS the so-called “divertimentificio” that a place for amusement as theatre and has become less palatable than other over the necessity of regulating and co- happens on the Adriatic coast and cabaret were in the past. However, it is club formats, like those in industrial ordinating nighttime opening hours and beyond; discos have become, in fact, only incidentally considered. Generally, warehouses, underground parking lots or services, as well as shedding light on the scapegoats of accusations concerning in a museum or in a Concert-Hall only a deconsecrated church. These times we different needs of the diverse actors and the lifestyles of the youth that, beyond the arts recognized as institutional are are more inclined to dance in a museum groups who populate the night. City councils many real problems, seems more exhibited or represented. This hardly than in a nightclub.38 and regions are thus left looking for solutions a desire for total control over their encourages an event in which something The crisis that saw the number of discos to nighttime entertainment-related issues. lives from adults that can only lead to new or unknown may emerge. However, decrease by two-thirds in recent years, from Ascendant interest in the night and in the generational clashes, today as always. it could well be the discotheque itself, 7,000 in the 1980s to barely 2,500 today, is histories of Italian disco culture, from the Without wanting to divide nightclubs the right place to generate something linked to many economic, cultural, social, Venice Biennale through media features to into two distinct groups (those of new.”37 and political factors that need to be given academic research, attest to the interest series A and series B), there exist some more attention, and which are also found in studying discos from an interdisciplinary areas where sheer fun is constantly A common thread runs through the aesthetic outside Italy. As scholar Everardo Minardi perspective. Always marginal within critical accompanied by an effort to create metamorphosis of the Italian discotheque, pointed out, after studying the current socio- and mainstream architectural discourse, cultural production and exchange, from the first discos of the 1960s to those of economic situation of discos (especially populated by youth and denigrated by media, expressed not only in the quality of 1990s: their marginality within architecture along the Riviera), the ephemerality of events discotheques may be seen as radical sites proposals that present everything that and cultural production, which has been their taking place in new spaces dedicated to other of experimentation in the aesthetics and is trendy, but also in the design of a force. Discos offered the potential for design functions, or found in temporary and often politics of the urban night. Their potential for space that is, indeed, ephemeral, but not experimentation, for the emergence of new illegal locations disseminated through social generating something new is deeply linked architecturally insignificant.35 artistic, music, and fashion trends, as well as media, the growing festival culture and the to the marginal and ephemeral position they serving as very important indicators of social, revamping of city centres with smaller night- have occupied in space, but also in time. In The Manila disco-club was, in fact, a cultural economic, and cultural practices related to clubs whose attractions were more diverse, conclusion, and to invoke both the historical and design experiment. Its interior design was the economy of the night, then and now. led to a decline in interest in discotheques. debate over the place of discos within re-invented throughout the years, from the For this reason, they should be taken into Moreover, discos have suffered growing nighttime economies and cultures, and the Egypt settings of Manila sul Nilo (Manile on consideration today in the creation of politics competition from events that populate the title of this journal itself, discos have been the Nile) in 1986, to the rougher style of the related to time and rhythm in urban areas. In night in a more informal way, often without “scapegoats,” bearing “the burden of the Manila Sexy Garage in 1987, from a warmer fact, after the grandeur of the 1980s and early having obtained the correct permit nor paying city and its sins.” As Everardo Minardi states, Spanish influence in Manila Me Gusta in 1988, 1990s, the mid-1990s saw the birth of a new taxes. As a recent report in La Repubblica after the massive disco-culture of the 1980s to the more local rationalistic architecture of kind of nightclub that went back to urban or points out, the crisis of discos is more rooted and 1990s, discos have reached today an the Manila Italia in 1989, and the international suburban areas, reoccupying the dismissed, in changes in the interests and habits of entrepreneurial organization contributing to breath of Manila Europa in 1990. Night-owls empty, and abandoned ruins left by the slow partygoers, and from the rise in competing the rising of the nighttime economy. However, frequenting the Manila ranged from local de-industrialization of Italy (a development events that are often illegal, than it is in the they maintain a “wild, not domesticated, and youth, to fashion stars like Cavallini, rock that occurred in many other Western countries general economic crisis, since “the economy maybe impossible to tame” aspect40, leading bands like Spandau Ballet, theatre companies as well). Some of the experimental nightclubs of the night, the one related to entertainment, to the magical atmosphere that allows for such Falso Movimento, designers and so on.36 opened in this era include: Magazzini Generali has never been so prosperous: 70 billion euros, the aesthetico-political experimentations Cesare Pergola, the architect who designed the (1995, Milan, by Massimo Iosa Ghini and 4% of Italy’s GDP.”39. But discos continue foregrounded above. Manila, underlines the central place that discos Giancarlo Soresina), La Gare (1994, Milan, to close their doors. On the one hand, they still had in 1980, during the emergence of new Ismaele Marrone), Link (1994, Bologna), Guerra are not able to compete amidst the growing NOTES from the 1960s to the Present interdisciplinary research in architecture: e Pace (1996, Casoria, by Gnosis Architettura), diversification of entertainment options, with 1 Jovanotti, Gente della (London: Bedford Press, 2015), The interest for discotheques has and Stop Line (1995, Curno, by Studio Archea). new kinds of entertainment spaces that have notte (London: Ibiza Records, 129. 1990). Original text: “A me 3 Giulia Foschi and concerned several architects, some of As renowned Italian DJ and music producer re-invented themselves under these new piace la notte gli voglio bene Carmine Saviano, “In Europa them very well known, who have found Claudio Coccoluto explains in Nightswimming: conditions of nighttime urban culture. On the / che vedo tante albe e crolla la febbre del sabato pochissime mattine, / la notte sera,” La Repubblica, 22 in that the possibility to express a design The discotheque’s architectural concept, other, as registered entertainment spaces mi ha adottato e mi ha dato un February 2016, http://inchieste. research otherwise impracticable. a legacy from the 70s with its dance which officially contribute to Italy’s nighttime lavoro / che mi piace un sacco repubblica.it/it/repubblica/ anzi io l’adoro. / Mi chiamo rep-it/2016/02/22/news/in_ Arata Isozaki, one of the greatest halls and disco-club, has become economy, they are confronted with high JOVANOTTI e faccio il deejay, / europa_crolla_la_febbre_del_ contemporary architects, with New somewhat obsolete. No evolution taxation and illegal competition. non vado mai a dormire prima sabato_sera-132722162. delle sei.” (My translation.) 4 Notte Italiana, http:// York’s Palladium has realized one of the occurred. Nowadays, a disco is any space Nevertheless, discos have been 2 Giovanna Silva www.notteitaliana.eu. most interesting plans of this design that can accommodate large numbers. important actors of the night. They have and Chiara Carpenter, 5 See Antonio La Grotta, Nightswimming: Discotheques Paradise Discotheque, area, and states: “The discotheque is In recent years this type of venue opened the door to a public, political debate 148 SCAPEGOAT 10 149 The Parabola of Italian Discotheques: ... NIGHT: DOMAINS 2014/2015, http://www. 14 Joseph Grima, del progetto della discoteca la-baia-degli-angeli-il-mito. A SECRET antoniolagrotta.eu/paradise- Alessandro Mendini and Vera è disegnare qualcosa che sta html. discotheque.html; Jessica Da Sacchetti, “The Role of Radical sotto, sotto il nostro conscio, 32 Silvio San Pietro and Ros, Memories on a Dancefloor, Magazines,” in The Italian dove ti immerge nel fluido Carlo Branzaglia, Disco-Design You reach http://memoriesonadancefloor. Avant-garde 1968–1976, ed. delle tue origini che non sai, in Italia (Milano: Edizioni the morning blogspot.ca; and Alessandro Catharine Rossi and Alex Coles dove la magia delle luci e L’archivolto, 1996), 19. Tesei, Ascosi Lasciti, https:// (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013), dei suoni che ti stralunano 33 Gini Alhadeff, ascosilasciti.com. 7–22. è parte del progetto a cui “Divertimentifici,” Domus 666 by riding 6 See Sandra Mallet, 15 More precisely Eco was nessun politecnico inizia.” (My (1985): 38. “Aménager les rythmes: Lecturer in Aesthetics at the translation.) 34 Ibid. the night. politiques temporelles et University of Torino, Facoltà 22 Ibid., 32. 35 Brunella Settesoldi, urbanisme,” EspacesTemps, di Lettere e Filosofia and at 23 Ibid., 24. Original text: “Preface,” in La scena della 15 April 2013, http://www. the Polytechnic of Milano, “Si muovevano efficacemente notte, ed. Cesare Pergola espacestemps.net/en/articles/ Facoltà di Architettura, 1961– gli artisti in questo laboratorio. (Firenze: Alinea, 1991), 4. amenager-les-rythmes- 1964; Associate Professor Mario Merz ballava con le Original text: “Una discoteca politiques-temporelles-et- of Visual Communication, colonne di acciaio inox, Marisa può essere un luogo dove si urbanisme; Nico Bortoletto, Facoltà di Architettura, sorrideva, Pistoletto e Mondino fa cultura e dove si fruisce Sistemi produttivi e consumi University of Firenze, 1966– si sfidavano in happenings di della stessa? Pensiamo alle simbolici nel mondo delle 1969; and Associate Professor borotalco e decine di metri polemiche di questi ultimi discoteche in Emilia-Romagna of Semiotics, Facoltà di di teli di polietilene, il Living mesi, sugli orari di apertura, (Faenza: Homeless Book, Architettura, Polytechnic di Theatre era di casa.” (My sul fatto che sono l’aspetto più 2012); and Everardo Minardi, Milano, 1969–1971. translation.) eclatante del divertimentificio Economia e sociologia della 16 Umberto Eco, 24 9999-Superstudio, che coinvolge la riviera notte (Faenza: Homeless Book, “L’architettura come S-Space presents: Vita, morte adriatica e non solo; sono 2015). comunicazione di massa?” in e miracoli dell’architettura / diventate, di fatto, il capro 7 Luc Gwiazdzinski, La struttura assente (Milano: Life, Death and Miracles of espiatorio di un j’accuse “Urbanisme des temps,” Bompiani, 1968). Architecture (Firenze: Festival che cerca di coinvolgere L’observatoire 43 (Winter 17 In an article published catalogue, 9–11 November in toto la vita dei giovani e 2013): 3–8. by the radical group 1971). che somiglia, al di là di tanti 8 Sandra Bonfiglioli, Superstudio in 1969 in Domus, 25 Catharine Rossi, problemi reali, ad una volontà “Politiche dei tempi urbani the group underlines the “Architecture at the Disco: di totale controllo degli adulti in Italia per una conciliazione link between their projects Radicals, Rhythms and the che non può non portare, tra tempi di vita e orari di and the theory Eco was 1970s Avant-Garde,” Space oggi come sempre, a scontri lavoro,” in Questioni di genere, developing during that time, Electronic, 4 June 2014, generazionali. Senza voler questioni di politica, ed. A. referring to the notion of https://spaceelectronic. dividere le discoteche in due Simonazzi (Roma: Carrocci, opera aperta (open work): wordpress.com/2014/06/04/ gruppi distinti (quelle di serie 2006). “only in the ambiguity, in the article-architecture-at-the- A e serie B), esistono però 9 Sandra Bonfiglioli, non-solution, in the plurality disco. alcune realtà dove il puro “Tempi sociali e tempi urbani: of possible lectures, occurs 26 Ibid. e semplice divertimento è un progetto di città,” Tempi the necessary tension that 27 Silva and Carpenter, permanentemente affiancato e spazi, January 2002, http:// leads to keep the work open Nightswimming, 139. da uno sforzo di produzione www.tempiespazi.it/spazi/ and ‘in-progess’.” Original 28 Antonio Negri, “The e scambio culturale che si bonfig. text: “Solo dall’ambiguità, Real Radical?” in The Italian estrinseca in proposte di qualità 10 “Law 53/2000,” dalla non-soluzione, dalla Avant-garde 1968–1976, ed. in una presentazione di tutto Gazzetta Ufficiale 60, 13 March pluralità delle possibili letture, Catharine Rossi and Alex Coles ciò che fa tendenza, ma anche 2000, http://www.parlamento. nasce la tensione necessaria (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2013), nella progettazione di uno it/parlam/leggi/00053l.htm. a mantenere l’opera aperta e 201–219. spazio sì effimero, ma non per 11 According to scholar ‘in progress’.” (My translation.) 29 Pierpaolo De Iulis, Italo questo architettonicamente Sandra Mallet, the debate over Superstudio, “Superstudio: Disco: The Sound of Spaghetti poco rilevante.” (My temporal politics that took Projects and Thoughts,” Domus Dance (Rome: Rave Up translation.) place in France in the 1990s 479 (October 1969), http:// Multimedia, 2009). 36 Cesare Pergola, La was inspired by the pioneer www.domusweb.it/en/from- 30 “Baia degli Angeli,” scena della notte (Firenze: work done in Italy by the the-archive/2012/02/11/ Notte Italiana, http:// Alinea, 1991), 9. Feminist and union movements. superstudio-projects-and- notteitaliana.eu/locale/baia- 37 Ibid., 9. (Mallet, “Aménager les thoughts.html. degli-angeli. Original text: 38 Quoted in Silva and rythmes,” 2.) 18 Umberto Eco, “Neanche l’America ha avuto Carpenter, Nightswimming, 12 In 2014, SILB, the “Preface,” in The Italian un posto come la Baia degli 146. Italian association for Metamorphosis, 1943–1968, ed. angeli: un’ex palestra affacciata 39 Foschi and Saviano, entertainment and nightclubs, Germano Celant (New York: sul mare con piscine, terrazze e “In Europa.” Original text: joined, with France and Spain Guggenheim Museum, 1994), sale da ballo con tanto consolle “L’economia della notte, quella in the European Nightlife xiv. in un ascensore di vetro. legata al divertimento, non Association, the first European 19 Leonardo Savioli, Lara Giancarlo Tirotti, l’imprenditore è mai stata così florida: 70 organization dedicated to Vinca Masini and Leonardo che ha dato vita alla Baia, è miliardi di euro, il 4% del Pil.” nightlife businesses. Many Ricci, Ipotesi di spazio (Firenze: stato più visionario di Steve (My translation.) cities are holding summits Giglio e Garisenda, 1972). Rubell dello storico Studio 54, 40 Everardo Minardi, on the nighttime economy, 20 Ibid., 2. “Spazio che aprirà solo nel 1977.” (My “La discoteca, la sua as Paris did in 2010, and are e coinvolgimento.” (My translation.) organizzazione e la sua appointing “night mayors” to translation.) 31 Matteo Tassinari, “Baia gestione: un caso di impresa co-ordinate the different needs 21 Ferrari, Discoteca 1968: degli angeli: cielo, speranza, selvatica?” Libero, 2002, of the night. L’architettura straordinaria crollo,” Notti notturne, 28 http://digilander.libero.it/ 13 Silva and Carpenter, (Torino: Allemandi, 1990), 22. January 2012, http://mattax- sociologiateramo/Nighttime. Nightswimming, 131. Original text: “L’incantesimo mattax.blogspot.ca/2012/01/ htm.

150 SCAPEGOAT 10 151