The Invisible Bars

During American Prohibition, some clandestine bars were hidden behind laundries, florists or ordinary shops. From the street, nothing seemed unusual. But behind a discreet door or false wall were found jazz, alcohol and nocturnal crowd. The entire architecture then became an urban camouflage system.

Between 1920 and 1933, Prohibition officially banned the production and sale of alcohol in the United States. This prohibition quickly caused the appearance of an immense network of clandestine bars called speakeasies.

To avoid police raids, several establishments concealed themselves behind perfectly ordinary businesses. Some entrances passed through automatic laundries, restaurants, hair salons or discreet back shops.

Access sometimes required a password or improvised surveillance system. Lookouts controlled arrivals while some secret doors allowed quickly disappearing bottles and customers. The famous 21 Club in New York even used complex mechanisms to hide alcohol in mobile compartments connected to conduits.

These places quickly became associated with jazz, new social freedoms and a very modern urban nightlife culture. Clandestinity also produced a particular aesthetic: low lights, narrow basements, thick curtains and labyrinthine circulation. The speakeasy thus wasn't only an illegal bar. It was a space designed around secrecy, where architecture, music and light criminality merged into a new metropolitan culture of the 1920s.