Radical Disco Piper club

The Radical Discos of 1960s Italy and Architectural Innovation
During the 1960s and 1970s, a number of discotheques opened across Italy. The first and most famous, Piper, opened in Rome in 1965 in an abandoned cinema. Designed by Manilo Cavalli and Francesco and Giancarlo Capolei (3C+t architects), Piper featured reconfigurable furnishings, advanced audiovisual technologies, and a stage for performers, which over the years was graced by the likes of Patty Pravo, Genesis, and Pink Floyd.
Piper immediately emerged as the focal point of the Roman bella vita, becoming a hub for star personalities from the world of entertainment and art, as well as characters from Rome’s social scene. The concept was inspired by the world of beat music, from which the innovative use of colored strobe lights coupled with modern tunes was copied.
The dance club was so successful, and its aesthetic would go on to be so often imitated, that the term “piper” became shorthand for this innovative new type of venue architecture. A group of young, experimental, and politically charged architects, most of them fresh out of university and looking for alternatives to the limitations of post-war modern design, led the movement, which would come to be called Radical Design.