Summary

The article "Music, fashion and town planning: how nightclubs change the world" written by Anna Codrea-Rado is devoted to the topic of how actually club culture changes our worldview. "From architecture to drug policy, nightlife quietly incubates ideas that then flourish in the mainstream", the author introduces. Some people define nightclubs as a place where you just get drunk listening to the music, the place you can go out of reality, with no connection to the wholesome things which happen during the day. But in fact, clubs attract people with a great interest in social activity like those that have an Instagram account or a fashion magazine subscription. Nightlife silently lays the foundation to grassroots movements and social moments, being a "breading ground for cultural experimentation".

First of all, Anna says that you can see it most obviously in fashion, from the punk style to contemporary rave culture. As for the music trends, they are often emerge first in nightclubs like Madonna's "Vogue" inspired by NY's ballroom scene.
Author mentions that clubbing has always been about creating a parallel reality for the night. In early clubs architects experimented with flexible spaces that could be changed depending of the situation. So that's why a lot of clubs have a varied cultural programming, including fashion shows, poetry reading and many other things in the same place where the discos were held. The author gives an example of De School which was redeveloped from the technical college into a cafe, restaurant, concert space, art gallery and nightclub. 

In terms of economics, the author shows that capitalising of nightlife, which leads to its growth, "runs counter to the ethos of the club as a place to escape everyday norms." Some people are against of "selling an experience", and, on the other hand, others say that brand deals are objectively a necessary part of the underground's ecosystem. If clubs are based on the branding opportunity, our future cultural history will be erased. Bright example of this abusing is a movement to provide a drug-checking service.

The last thing mentioned in the article is that nightclubs are the birthplace of some radical social changes. “There’s no reason why the dancefloor can’t be an educational space,” Nadine Artois says.

I’ve chosen this topic because I rarely visit clubs and I'm very interested in their influence on our culture.