Cairo

The jazz club entry on Wells Street leads to a truncated conic entry vestibule with a copper door. A long bar inspired by the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for liquid zig zags between cast iron columns on the south side of the room. The north side of the room is filled with raw steel café chairs focused on a spiraling conic plaster band shell with a fissured surface like the cracked mud of the Sahara.

The dance club entry is from the west side courtyard. To enlarge the cellar dance-club, vaults under the sidewalk of the corner building were leased and then restructured to create a series of private rooms overlooking the dance floor from the periphery. 

The design allowed the separate operations of the ground floor  jazz bar/cafe and the underground dance club.

The dance floor was conceived of as an archeological excavation; layered, sunken, bounded by raw steel. Overlooking the dance floor is a collection of brick-walled private-rooms, which were once under-sidewalk vaults.

Materials include raw and rusted steel, bird’s eye maple, sandblasted brick, blown glass
and fissured plaster.  

The bar is a three dimensional interpretation
of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for liquid. The back bar cabinet is A cubist interpretations
of sarcophagi. 

Custom seating and metal details composed
with structural raw steel components and unfinished die-castings. A spiraling conic shell
was built in wet plaster and manipulated to create fissures suggestive of the cracked mud
of the Sahara; the shell reflects band music
into the room.  The spiral form was used to
suggest change over time.

Light fixtures of blown glass reflect light off of linen textiles inspired by improvised awnings employed in Cairo street markets.