Just come across this website about the documentary "H.R. Giger's Sanctuary", which focuses on the biomechanoid themed bars based on his designs. Apparently, there used to be one in Tokyo, but it closed in a relatively short period of time, not least because it was becoming a hang out for the city's yakuza. Hence the inevitable question arises, if bioglobalism continues apace, how long will it be till the corporate headquarters of News Corp and assorted players in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry start to take on these features without any knowing postmodern irony?
http://www.gigerfilm.com/TOKYO H.R. GIGER BARNO LONGER EXISTS
The Giger-Bar in Tokyo was actually created against my will. While I was in Tokyo, I was asked to make a wish, on stage, during a press conference. Spontaneously, I wished for a bar, which was then brought into being even more spontaneously! For this bar, I had developed the concept of tables-for-two in open elevator cars in the manner of gliding elevators that would travel up and down the four-story establishment, perpetually in motion. I hadn't taken into consideration the Japanese fire marshals. I had already been driven to the brink of madness by the building codes requiring flexible structures to ensure that buildings withstand earthquake shocks. When they nixed the elevator idea and prescribed fixed cabins hanging like balconies with wire mesh on the atrium side, I threw in the towel. Only Conny de Fries and my former agent persevered. This bar, with its huge entrance area, inside which spiral stairs open to the atrium, came into being. It seems the bar was tailor-made for the underworld, which is not what I had intended. A friend who visited the place about 5 years after it opened told me it had fallen into the hands of the Yakuza. He went on to report that he was alone in the bar until 11 o'clock, when it began to fill with the type of unsavory characters who might have installed a roulette table in the atrium. My friend chose to take his leave. The bar no longer exists. Insiders know that a bar in Tokyo rarely survives more than five years!
The Giger-Bar in Tokyo was actually created against my will. While I was in Tokyo, I was asked to make a wish, on stage, during a press conference. Spontaneously, I wished for a bar, which was then brought into being even more spontaneously! For this bar, I had developed the concept of tables-for-two in open elevator cars in the manner of gliding elevators that would travel up and down the four-story establishment, perpetually in motion. I hadn't taken into consideration the Japanese fire marshals. I had already been driven to the brink of madness by the building codes requiring flexible structures to ensure that buildings withstand earthquake shocks. When they nixed the elevator idea and prescribed fixed cabins hanging like balconies with wire mesh on the atrium side, I threw in the towel. Only Conny de Fries and my former agent persevered. This bar, with its huge entrance area, inside which spiral stairs open to the atrium, came into being. It seems the bar was tailor-made for the underworld, which is not what I had intended. A friend who visited the place about 5 years after it opened told me it had fallen into the hands of the Yakuza. He went on to report that he was alone in the bar until 11 o'clock, when it began to fill with the type of unsavory characters who might have installed a roulette table in the atrium. My friend chose to take his leave. The bar no longer exists. Insiders know that a bar in Tokyo rarely survives more than five years!
H.R. Giger Excerpt from the book www HR Giger com © 1997 Taschen Verlag
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