Now that we’re two months into 2024, some early design trends are emerging. And if there’s one cultural tastemaker defining this year’s visual direction thus far, it’s David Lynch.
The first major Lynchian development came when Milan’s Salone del Mobile announced that the film director is designing a pair of feature installations for this year’s fair. (Lynch’s fellow filmmaker Antonio Monda curated the project, while local repertory theatre Piccolo Teatro di Milano acted as an additional collaborator.) Dubbed “thinking rooms,” Lynch’s environments are being pitched as cerebral escapes that will encourage attendees to reflect on the relationship between interior design and the interiority of the mind. Early renderings depict circular spaces shrouded in mysterious red curtains.
Notably, this isn’t Lynch’s first venture into interior design. Apart from introducing us to some of cinema and television’s most memorable onscreen sets, the Twin Peaks mastermind also designed Silencio, a Parisian nightclub opened in 2011 that takes inspiration from the venue that Betty (played by Naomi Watts) and Rita (Laura Harring) visit in Mulholland Drive.
As buzz around Silencio grew, its founder, Arnaud Frisch, went on to open two additional locations: a second Parisian outpost, as well as a sandy Ibiza beach house. This month, the members-only club collective unveiled its fourth hotspot, Silencio NYC, in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. Design duties for this address went to Crosby Studios — and yet, in keeping with Silencio tradition, the end result still feels like something straight out of a Lynch film.
Photo by Eric Mutrie
It helps that Crosby Studios founder and creative director Harry Nuriev is a celebrated surrealist in his own right. At Design Miami this past December, the Russian-born, NYC-based designer presented the Tapestry Sofa, which upholstered a suburban recliner in a faux-distressed fabric that riffed on antique French textile patterns. Metal attachments on the sides introduced a coordinating cocktail table, floor lamp, and iPad holder, while the surrounding, completely white room gave off a bizarre, somewhat clinical — yet equally dreamlike — glow. The display was at once retro and futuristic, inviting and yet vaguely unsettling. It was, in other words, textbook Lynch.
Lest there was ever any doubt about Nuriev’s creative idols, Silencio NYC lays his cards right on the table. As Crosby Studios says in its press release, “Harry wanted to have a dialogue with the director whose movies [he] grew up on.” Hence the project’s moody colour scheme and seductive material palette.
Indeed, the club’s design thrives on juxtaposition, with crimson velvet curtains pulling back to reveal private rooms splashed in floor-to-ceiling gold. The reflective surfaces in these nooks (which are raised on platforms two steps up from the dance floor) add another layer of optical drama, heightening the idea that things in this subterranean environment are perhaps not quite as they first appear.
Standalone elements, like the boxy DJ booth and circular cocktail tables, continue the tone-on-tone approach that distinguishes the project’s monochromatic red dance floor from its intimate metallic alcoves. (The back bar area is another golden focal point.) Lest things begin to blur together as the night goes on, Crosby Studios delineates walls and doorways with glowing neon borders.
Along with evoking Studio 54 and the glory days of NYC clubbing, Silencio NYC is also rich in allusions to Lynchian lore. Fans of Twin Peaks will immediately recognize the club’s red curtains as a reference to the Black Lodge, and they may also detect a hint of the Roadhouse’s signage in the venue’s abundant neon.
David Lynch portrait by Dean Hurley
What has inspired this sudden David Lynch renaissance? Perhaps the eerie déjà vu feeling brought on by the upcoming US election has jump-started a new appreciation for Lynch’s skill at conveying a sense of foreboding. Or maybe Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune: Part Two — and discussions about Lynch’s own attempt to adapt Frank Herbert’s space epic — have cast a spotlight on Lynch’s distinct visual style. Whatever the case, when it comes to 2024, something tells us that Silencio NYC won’t be our last peek behind the red velvet curtain.