Also this issue: Designer Labeled A new book and exhibit ask “What Is Design Today?” -A.D. Amorosi Icepack -A.D. Amorosi

October 3- 9, 2002

naked city

firstlook

by A.D. Amorosi

From Revival to Life (with Wichita Steaks, Jake & Oliver’s and Upstage in between), the grand Grecian-column bank space at 22 S. Third St. has become a legend. Actually, since Revival’s closing in 1995, the house that David Cohen built has become a legendary headache with an astounding number of twists and turns and successes and failures. Enter Static, with novice owners, designers Artists at Large and design/lighting director Scotto. Scotto, a young legend in his own right, has done everything from artist development for Moby to promoting and staging/lighting Manhattan’s grandest ballrooms -- Limelight, Webster Hall, Tunnel and, most famously, Twilo -- before coming to Philly to do likewise for Bash and Static. “The basic idea was to turn that deep, wide second-floor dance space from just a decade’s worth of black and gray paint into something fresher, cleaner and Euro-vibey.” There’s a stark simplicity to floor two’s smart-spot-lit environment much at one with Tigerhook’s clear-liquid-house sounds being blasted through Static’s new 20,000-watt system.

Scotto hasn't put light one into the downstairs VIP space, a spot littered with brass and glass bonglike light fixtures and a disco ball.

Why? He's not so fond of the flat monochrome look on Static's VIP floor. Yet Scotto knows with insistent tweaking (he's working on it at present) and with his soon-due nuances of scrims, slide projections and cinematic washes, he will be able to lend depth to darkness, and create tone where color could be.

Above the wide steps on Third Street, Static's distressed granite-stained, stucco-textured first floor features semi-circular banquettes on the right side, each hooded by sheets of curved metal. At the back of Static's stage is its bar, circular and oak with smeary mirrors and a twisted metal backbar reflecting the evening's mass of silver-trayed waitresses, dancers and the bar's neighboring metal-canopied DJ booth. To your left is a raised VIP area filled with black-leather cushy conversation pits, behind which is another back VIP room. Can it work? Will it work? Scotto thinks so. "The Tigerhook thing and the re-hanging of sound and light, changing the shape of the dance floor is going to bring a great underground vibe. It'll change the subconscious perspective of the patron. Downstairs we're going to flood with color. It'll be elegant soon."

Static, 22 S. Third St., 215-923-5007.