Smoked oak

To boldly go…A surrealist speakeasy has opened in the heart of Dubai. The Secret Room, designed by Toronto-based Paolo Ferrari, is a nightclub that deftly threads together space and time with authenticity. The complex design draws inspiration from the far corners of the world—not unlike the cultural panoply of Dubai—and grounds it within the subterranean depths of the Five Palm Jumeirah Hotel.   “When we started this project, we had a visual of Villa Farnese [a Renaissance-era mansion in Rome], then we spliced it with Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate,” says Ferrari of The Secret Room’s early inspiration. Then, to anchor the idea of bacchanalian decadence with a feeling of noble restraint, the desig... More