By Christy Marshall
Photograph by Katherine Bish
Nightclubs may be all about the scene, but they’re also about the “seen”—seeing hip people, being seen by same.
Over the past dozen years, Scott Kester, a New York City–based architect and designer, has created the interiors of plenty of restaurants and clubs—he’s responsible for San Francisco’s Frisson, Lotus in New York’s meatpacking district and the Caribbean-themed Rumi in Miami. In every venture, he designed a space where being seen is as easy as seeing others. “We call it the figure eight,” Kester says. “It’s part of the bar culture that you sit down and want to see what’s going on in other parts of the room.”
At Mandarin, the new urban lounge by nightclub moguls Pete Ferretti and Buddy Coy, the architectural challenge was merging two buildings in Maryland Plaza, with the outdoor terrace helping achieve Kester’s figure-eight configuration.
There’s no sign outside on the street (the club is on the penthouse level, above Design Within Reach), but once the elevator doors open and you’re facing walls of Buddha after Buddha in the bar’s entry, you’ll know where you are.
With all due respect to Hong Kong: Hello, Suzie Wong.
“They were interested in an Asian-themed space,” Kester says, explaining the army of big-bellied figurines. “Here the feeling was something like Shanghai a long time ago. It’s fun to go into an area and get a little bit lost.”
The main component of the décor is vinyl—vinyl-covered walls, vinyl-covered custom-designed banquettes. (One suspects that once the girl in the Jimmy Choo stilettos starts dancing on the furniture, those banquettes will be reupholstered in something with the thickness of, say, rawhide.) The accent lighting consists mainly of lanterns covered in red dupioni silk, with fringe and red-painted linings (a job Kester did himself).
The floors are stained concrete, and several of the walls are painted in a palette dominated by reds, greens and a variety of earth tones. And then there are the bathrooms that hark back to that “see everyone all the time” theme: The wall behind the trough sinks only goes halfway up so that the men and women can chat across the divide.
Back in the club, it’s eyes down—right down to the feet.
“It’s all about shoes,” Kester says with a glint in his eye. “People get dressed up, and they get new shoes. You need someplace to walk so you can show them off.”
