LIGHTS OUT Lumen works a darker palette.
Photo: Courtesy of Lumen
When Lumen opened in 2007, its owners were wide-eyed nightclub virgins, and each had a slightly different vision of what the space in Fulton Market should be. One of the owners had more say; designer Peter Gogarty wanted it to be modular, flexible and filled with light. It was given a loungey, open feel with very low tables and couches that invited lying around. An unusual LED fixture acted as installation art to paint the clientele in blues and reds. The DJ booth was elevated and removed like a clandestine bunker, and Lumen’s audio was configured as a surround system.
Early on, the club had no cover—the owners hoped to open at 8pm to grab a postdinner crowd from nearby Randolph Street. With its arty lounge concept, Lumen set the stage for genteel boho guests sipping cocktails. Chicago clubbers, however, had other plans.
Those plans included dancing on Lumen’s low tables, clinging to the bar (thinking that the tables were reserved for bottle service), and staying late for increasingly raucous dance parties from electro, house and hip-hop DJs. Lumen’s Tuesday-night industry party with promoter Miguel Castro earned a rep as a banging night out for nightlife workers. Gradually shedding its lounge image, Lumen embraced the role of new nightclub on the block, where a variety of promoters brought young party people to play.
The owners are just happy that people are coming at all. Fulton Market might be heating up slowly, but it doesn’t see much foot traffic. Gogarty says he rarely sees couples club hopping; he senses that many Chicago partyers don’t yet appreciate a gritty-on-the-outside, chic-on-the-inside contrast when the tidy streets of River North offer a higher concentration of venues.
“It was set up to be communal and chill. Maybe people weren’t expecting that, didn’t know how to interact with the space,” Gogarty says. The dance DJs and celeb drop-ins from Bill Murray came with clubbers bent on showing off and going buck wild. “People loved to dance on the tables. They were so accessible.”
Rather than forcing a vision on clubbers, Lumen is adapting to the Chicago way. This month, the club unveiled the first of its design revisions—“nothing drastic,” Gogarty says. “In the new setup, I designed tables that were less accommodating, but we opened up floor space.” The club also created central bottle service–friendly areas to meet demand.
Although “we had ideas that music would be more transparent and subdued,” beats have emerged as more central to Lumen’s identity. The club switched from white to graphite: “Everything is dark.” A live stage and more visible DJ booth recently debuted on the opposite end of the club from the DJ bunker with a more conventional tuned-up sound system.
Lumen based the transition on patrons and their needs—who, even in austere times, are apt to return a favor. “It’s been surprisingly busy,” Gogarty says. “We have back-to-back really solid weekends. People are tired of living in fear. They’re like, Let’s go out.”
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