Mulholland Drive inspires a Parisian club
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Your support makes all the difference.David Lynch aficionados will soon have a new temple to worship at. The cult auteur's latest project is designing a club in Paris. Club Silencio gets its name from the fictional establishment featured in Lynch's lauded 2001 movie Mulholland Drive. Lynch has designed the entire interior of the club, including some striking pieces of furniture. A surreal wooden-speaker stack seems to resemble a nightmarish appropriation of the face of a child's cuddly toy – the eyes being the two circular speaker cones. He's also designed several bespoke chairs and an asymmetrical double sofa, footstool and side- table combination.
The private members' club is at 142 Rue Montmartre, not far from the Paris Stock Exchange. The upper floors of the building previously housed left-leaning newspaper L'Aurore, whose most famous front page featured Émile Zola's rabble-rousing letter "J'accuse..." in 1898. The building is also currently home to Social Club – the city's hottest nightspot, which has hosted DJ sets by the new wave of French disco and techno acts like Cassius, Justice and SebastiAn.
Lynch has form as a Francophile. He's been made an officer of the Légion d'Honneur, has exhibited paintings at the Cartier Foundation, and was granted a retrospective of his work at the Cinémathèque Français last autumn. Lynch also has a soft spot for the French capital – last year he told French paper The Connexion: "Paris is, I think, the most beautiful city in the world." The director has been quiet on the film front of late, and hasn't brought out a full-length feature since Inland Empire, in 2006. Commenting to The New York Times last month, Lynch said of designing Club Silencio: "I enjoy how architecture and design create mood."
Club Silencio was slated to open in June, but will now launch in September. The club will also feature a private film screening room. As you might expect from a Lynch project, much is still shrouded in secrecy. Those involved with the club reveal little, saying information will be released nearer to the opening date. But this cloud of obfuscation hasn't stopped Lynch's devoted fanbase from excitably posting leaks, titbits and photographs on internet forums and Facebook. Club Silencio, it seems, won't stay quiet for long.
Club Silencio (142 Rue Montmartre, Paris) opens in September
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