hospitalitystyle.com

(Summer 2011) posted on Thu Jun 23, 2011 EDT

Ace of Clubs: Hong Kong’s Tazmania Ballroom trumps the usual late night scene with a mix of retro tech and cool contemporary design.

By Mary Scoviak

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Stylistically, Hong Kong’s Tazmania Ballroom has about as much in common with Starbucks as Vivienne Westwood has with Gap. Gilbert Yeung’s newest private club is a high-end hangout where martinis are shaken, not stirred, and the heavy, golden oak entry doors remain firmly shut unless everyone knows your name. But, underneath all that, this Tom Dixon-designed nightspot distills retro tech with bespoke elegance and modern metallics into a third- place space where A-listers can mix, match and pound out a mean game of pingpong.

“I wanted something like the nightclubs I went to in Toronto when I was at university there in the 1980s,” says the Hong Kong-born Yeung, one of the kings of the local entertainment/dining scene. “Back then, my friends and I were looking for places where we could enjoy the music, play pool, meet girls and just chill. People still want to have different activities available in a club. I asked Tom Dixon [head of Design Research Studio, an arm of Design Research Group] to create interiors that would be versatile and flexible enough to accommodate that and still be hip, on trend and glamorous.”

Dixon had no trouble sussing what style-setters want. His S chair (manufactured by Italy’s Cappellini), stints with furniture power brands such as the U.K.’s Habitat and Finland’s Artek, and product placement in the permanent collections of major museums on three continents made the self-taught designer a superstar in his own right.

Not surprisingly for an industrial designer turned interior designer, Dixon uses the basic components—the walls and ceilings—to frame each experience. Guests enter through the speakeasy ambience of a bronze, mirrored staircase with its lighted risers ascending to the club level. Once inside, they can choose their mood. In one area, plaster, floor-to-ceiling faux bookshelves suggest the leather-bound, smoke-filled intimacy of a British gentlemen’s club. In another, faceted metallic walls create a shimmering, craggy cavern. Then there’s the drama of vertical surfaces patterned with geometric diamond buttresses. “Hong Kong is a city with limited space. Finding the right building was difficult,” says Yeung, who launched his empire with Dragon-I, just down the street from his new club. “We were fortunate to find a space with such high ceilings and no columns.

Dixon works from macro to micro to shape the visual context for the zones within Tazmania Ballroom. He plays out the traditional theme with masculine elements—from the expected leather armchairs to the somewhat provocative animal trophies mounted on the walls and the jolts of neon light in the games room. He looks to the future with big statements such as his Copper Shade lights clustered above the dance floor, angled mirrors that splinter reflections into op-art shards and details like the gold-plated sides of the billiard tables. Plush striped armchairs are just around the corner from a modern blue chalk reception station. While the lounge features an oversized black leather banquette that curves around half the room, other destinations have deep-cushioned blue and teal sofas accented with golden, goblet-shaped drink tables.

Yeung also wanted his guests to have some fun with the design. Dixon obliged by working with his client’s team on a cable system that would raise both the billiard tables and pingpong tables to the ceiling to clear and expand the dance floor. “That was really the biggest challenge of the project,” says Yeung. “But we set out to do something different, exciting—something that would show we believe nothing is impossible. It’s great to see some people dancing and some people chatting or playing pingpong, with the balls flying all over the room. That takes everything up a notch.”