Night fever: designing club culture 1960 - Today
A large-scale touring exhibition investigating the international relationship between design and club culture.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-118-1665
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- March
- Year of first exhibition
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- The co-curated Night Fever (2018) exhibition and catalogue is rooted in research commenced by Catharine Rossi in 2013. Supported by the host institution Vitra Design Museum, Rossi undertook research in France, Germany, UK, Italy and Hong Kong. She undertook over 15 interviews with architects, designers and DJs, visited archives, libraries, collections and exhibitions in cities including London, Manchester, Hull and Liverpool, and site visits to clubs and related venues including Ministry Does Fitness, Haçienda Classical and Turin’s Club II Club festival. Rossi consulted contemporary periodicals and secondary literature from disciplines including the histories of film, music, architecture, art and design.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Nightclubs have been largely overlooked in the histories of architecture and design, despite their significance as sites of creative innovation. Night Fever (2018) is the first large-scale exhibition on the relationship between design and club culture. Opened at Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, DE, the touring exhibition was scheduled to travel to up to eight venues before 2023. Catharine Rossi, Jochen Eisenbrand (Chief Curator at Vitra Design Museum) and Nina Serulus (ADAM – Brussels Design Museum curator) co-curated the exhibition, and Eisenbrand and Rossi also led on co-editing the Night Fever catalogue (2018).
Rossi’s invitation to co-curate Night Fever was based on her research into the design history of nightclubs since 2013; Rossi’s role in the curation was extensive. She led on researching British and Italian club culture design history, and extended the exhibition’s geographical reach to include countries such as China, Hong Kong and South Africa. Her primary and secondary research included archival study, interviews, object research, and nightclub and exhibition visits. Rossi also co-authored the introduction and a catalogue essay, co-commissioned the remaining catalogue essays, conducted five of the seven interviews included and collaborated on assembling five portfolios of archival visual material, some of which has been published for the first time. She also collaborated on the appointment and collaboration with the exhibition and graphic designer and participated in the exhibition’s public programme.
Night Fever presents the nightclub as a specific type of architectural space; an architecture made by artificial light and sound, whose nocturnal, sealed off character engenders a social and creative freedom for designers and dancers alike. The research is presented through over 200 objects including posters, furniture, fashion, film and photography, and an especially commissioned audio-visual installation by exhibition designer Konstantin Grcic, club-lighting designer Matthias Singer and Night Fever music consultant, Steffen Irlinger.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
