Jonathan Bell, from the excellent things magazine, writes a column about Sketch, over at the equally excellent The Morning News (forming a temporary website supergroup or something - a Beck Bogert Appice in response to the recent announcement of the reformation of The Cream.)
I went to Sketch for afternoon tea a few months back, subsconsciously limiting myself to the tearoom, the space perhaps implicitly describing the limits of my social and financial caché. Either way it felt a far more reasonable thing to do than an expensive evening excursion - but I still felt slightly dirty and soiled afterwards (and not necessarily in a good way.) It's so ridiculously opulent. Utterly fabulous, but ...
Bell describes the launch party of Nigel Coates' Ecstacity [UK|US] brilliantly, referencing A Clockwork Orange but seeming to describe an aloof Ballardian excess as much as anything - it sounded truly dreadful, in a spectacular sort of way.
"Insulated beats thud out of the speakers, making us cock our heads at jaunty angles to counter horrifically compromised directional hearing. A grand horseshoe staircase leads up to a plateau on which rest about 10 white shiny pods, a visual quote from 2001. These are the restrooms. Suffice to say that the thought of strutting up to a white plastic egg, nonchalantly clambering in and doing one’s thing, while a perfectly tailored lavatory attendant loiters outside, doesn’t appeal. The designers have created a space that’s part Stanley Kubrick, part Chris Cunningham, a sleek robotic insertion into a classical environment that’s spoiled only by the blind indifference of the bobbing Eurotrash. The architecture geeks – here for the launch – are crawling over everything, in miniature ecstasies of their own, whispering about overheard menu prices."
