Playboy Club Mayfair, Old Park Lane London casino image, Venue location, Cocktail bar picture, Design

Playboy Club London : Mayfair Venue

Playboy Club London, England, UK, design by Jestico + Whiles Architects

15 Jun 2011

Playboy Club London

New Playboy Club London designed by Jestico + Whiles opens

Address: Playboy club & casino, 14 Old Park Lane, Mayfair, London, W1K 1ND

Contact Playboy Club London: 020 7514 9000

Designed by award-winning architects and designers Jestico + Whiles, the new exclusive Playboy club and casino in Mayfair, officially opened its doors on Saturday 4th June.

Playboy Club Cocktail Bar:

photo : James Newton

Located off Park Lane, a few hundred metres from the club’s original home, the new 17,000 square foot venue is spread over two floors and features a bespoke restaurant called “The Dining Room” ran by top chef Judy Joo, the “Salvatore’s at the Playboy Club” cocktail bar, a lounge, and a casino with high‐limit ‘salle privee’ gaming rooms.

Opening exactly three decades after the closure of the original Playboy Club London, the new venue has been carefully designed to mediate between tradition and innovation, retaining all the timeless opulence of the Playboy experience but interpreted and tailored to the London of today.

As the public façade of the club, the external colour and motifs of the curtain alter to reflect the mood or the occasion, changing from a delicate pale lilac tint to saturated scarlet, offering tantalising suggestions of the activity within. To maximise privacy, views into the interior are obscured by a diaphanous sheer curtain which runs continuously around the upper floor of the façade revealing only an occasional fluttering shadow of movement from within.

Playboy Club – Exterior:

photo : James Newton

Internally, Jestico + Whiles’ design incorporates a number of inventive features to maximise the playful ambience of the venue and translate Playboy icons into modernity. Opaque black folding‐screens cut with radial patterns of bunny heads are placed throughout the ground floor, acting like Arabic mashrabiya screens to reveal glimmers of movement from behind. Framed archive photographs line the stair‐walls as the guests ascend.

Throughout the club, motifs and triggers are applied to the design to evoke the spirit of Mayfair and its rich heritage. The bright raspberry lining of the lift interior is reminiscent of the bright silk lining of a tailored suit. Fine stitching and horn buttons are applied to upholstery and timber panelling is rendered in the glossiest of pitch black lacquer.

Playboy Club – Players Bar:

photo : James Newton

The venue has been devised as a split‐stage experience, with strong atmospheric distinctions between the upper and lower levels of the club. The ground floor is dark and mysterious, whilst the upper floor is light and ethereal. This architectural concept has been conceived to signify the visitor’s journey within the establishment, as they cross over the ‘threshold’ of the upper lobby and leave the reality of city‐life behind to enter the fantasy world of Playboy.

The smoky atmosphere of the original clubs is evoked through an abstract motif of tinted smoke which floats continuously across floors, walls and ceilings, and is animated by light effects which change almost imperceptibly in tone and intensity according to mood.

Playboy Club – Reception:

photo : James Newton

James Dilley, Jestico + Whiles’ Associate Director in charge of the project commented: “This is a fascinating project for us given the heritage and legacy of the global brand. Our design takes the best of these and reinterprets them in a contemporary way to bring the Playboy experience right up to date and make it relevant to today’s clients. We have also drawn inspiration from the club’s location in Mayfair and its reputation as the home of bespoke tailoring, fine dining, gentlemen’s’ clubs and the location for high living.“

The Playboy Club is the latest project from Jestico + Whiles’ award‐winning Interiors and Hotels Studio which has carved a reputation for producing high quality design for a prestigious client list. The practice’s W Hotel in Leicester Square was completed in February 2011, while a further London hotel for Starwood, the Aloft ExCel, is currently under construction.

Playboy Club – Smoking Terrace:

photo : James Newton

Playboy Club Mayfair Design

Jestico + Whiles

Jestico + Whiles is an award-winning architectural and interior design practice with offices in London and Prague. The architecture practice has grown steadily since the formation of the partnership by Tom Jestico and John Whiles in 1977.

In recent years the practice has undergone particularly rapid growth, building on its reputation for design quality and innovative solutions to challenging briefs, whilst diversifying into a range of different sectors. The practice incorporates a specialist studio of experienced designers including architects, interior designers and FFE specifiers.

The team has earned a global reputation for excellence in hospitality architecture and design, supported by a large number of international awards. Besides the extraordinary W London Hotel in Leicester Square, Jestico + Whiles was also the designer of three major new hotels opened recently to universal praise, including Andels Lodz, the recipient of the European Hotel Design Award 2009, Andels Berlin and the new “ultraluxe” Yas Hotel on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi which spans the new Formula One Grand Prix race track.

For more information visit www.jesticowhiles.com

Playboy

London Clubs International (LCI) & Playboy Enterprises, Inc.

London Clubs International Limited is a British gambling company that was purchased in 2006 by a subsidiary of Caesars Entertainment. Playboy is one of the most recognized and popular consumer brands in the world. Playboy Enterprises, Inc. is a media and lifestyle company that markets the brand through a wide range of media properties and licensing initiatives.

The company publishes Playboy magazine in the United States and abroad and creates content for distribution via television networks, websites, mobile platforms and radio. Through licensing agreements, the Playboy brand appears on a wide range of consumer products in more than 150 countries as well as retail stores and entertainment venues.
For more information visit www.playboyclublondon.com.

Playboy Club London images / information received Jun 2010

Jestico + Whiles

Location: 14 Old Park Lane, Mayfair, London, W1K 1ND, UK

London, England, UK