Sasha Gebler
Sasha Gebler is tall and fine-featured, and walks around the Electric greeting everyone. He doesn't come to the club as much now as he used to when he lived in Holland Park, and soon he is moving to Wapping and will doubtless visit even less but still, he feels very connected to the place. Sasha is the architect responsible for the restaurant, the club and the refurbished cinema, as well as the ever-expanding Soho House group's international projects.
Sasha wants to put the record straight about the Electric, after we mistakenly implied in The Hill last year that another architect was responsible for it. Sasha's work was incremental to the entire project, and he was involved before the club idea had even evolved. "I came to it through another local project, the Travel Bookshop, which I was working on when my client, the investor behind the bookshop, looked into buying what was then a derelict cinema, as a bit of a gamble." This was 1997; the buyer asked Sasha to take a look at it and slowly it became clear that the cinema's problems were not simply to do with the state of the building, though the state of the building was terrible. Not only had the site fallen into disrepair - a leaking roof, rusty joists and years of neglect had left it crumbling and near to collapse - but it no longer fulfilled either the technological or the economic demands of late 20th century cinema.
The Electric, as the country's fist purpose-built cinema, was designed for another age. Films were shorter and the audience was in the building more briefly, therefore needing fewer loos and refreshments. Now, buildings need to have space for other activities. In the early days of the Electric refurb, Sasha says: "First we thought we could do it up and make it into an art cinema with maybe a film bookshop but it soon became clear that a simple cinema would be unsustainable. Film distributors impose all sorts of conditions and restrictions on cinemas, which favour chains and multiplexes over small, single-screen independents, as well as taking a large proportion of ticket sales. We thought we should do a restaurant too."
Cinemas need to make their money from other things, most notably by having a captive audience to sell things to. But the Electric had no space for selling anything and that was when their attention was drawn to the little supermarket next door. "We asked who their landlord was but couldn't get a straight answer. A land registry search brought up an address in Guernsey, which was good news because Guernsey normally means money." They contacted the owners and soon received a positive reply and an invitation to a meeting in Lancaster Road. "It was like something out of a film, because the address turned out to be the headquarters of Monsoon," says Sasha, still visibly excited by these events of 10 years ago. "The lift opened into a big studio loft space and there was Peter Simon, owner of Monsoon, saying that he really liked the scheme, and felt connected because he had started Monsoon from a stall outside the Electric." Clearly Peter was more suited to the scheme than the businessman owner, so soon a huge sum of money changed hands and ownership of the cinema was transferred to him.
Peter Simon had originally bought the shop planning to launch Monsoon Home there if he could knock it through to get access from Kensington Park Road - but it was landlocked and he couldn't, and Monsoon Home needed the smart Kensington Park Road connection, not the dusty Portobello address. So most of the space was simply wasted but connecting it to the cinema gave it a rear exit and created a vast amount of new useable space and with Peter Simon now owning both sites, and keen on the idea of a cinema and restaurant, the only thing the project still needed was permission.
"Ironically, it was the council who really insisted that we make it a club for film people and link it to the cinema," says Sasha. Normally you wouldn't in a million years get permission to knock down a supermarket and build a restaurant but here the council was worried that the site would be taken over by a ruthless developer and their Arts Council-type thinking made them want to fulfil their cultural objectives for the year, for which a mini arts centre was perfect," explains Sasha.
But still, the building was a problem. "We had a derelict building that was not near public transport, in a street that was then considered dodgy to say the least, with uncomfortable seats, leaking roof, no fire alarm, a screen that was minute when showing modern films [film stock dimensions had changed], sound you could not hear and a long history of failure." As a listed building, it was protected, which posed further problems for Sasha, both ideological and practical. "At first, buildings were listed because they were venerable and revered, like palaces and cathedrals, usually the products of a pre-industrial or technical age. Then we started believing that buildings which were produced for modern purposes were also worthy of listing. The problem is that the technology they embody is now out of date, but it is fundamental to their construction. Do you therefore restore them to their built state, but treat them like a museum, or do you update them so that they can function in the modern world?"
Eventually it was decided to restore where possible but to add contemporary additions that were clearly distinct from the original features.
Gradually, Electric House was conceived. "We knew there were a lot of film people in the area, and that there were lots of problems with cinemas in general. I remember sitting down with a film director friend at the time and making a list of reasons why we don't go to the cinema. The seats are too close together, you can't bring your drink in, the film starts at a funny time and when you get to the restaurant afterwards you've missed last orders and the whole evening is a disaster," says Sasha.
Crucial to the philosophy of the site was that the restaurant needed to be a pull in itself: "Lots of arts centres have restaurants but normally they're no good because arts centre people don't know anything about restaurants. Here, from the start it was clear that we'd get separate people involved. Jamie Oliver was interested, but he had no film connections. Groucho was interested but only because they owned 192 and didn't want anyone else in competition. And then Soho House came along."
Since then, Sasha and his company Gebler Tooth have done all of Soho House's work, including Nick Jones and Kirsty Young's house in Bassett Road W10. Currently he is working on an outpost of the club in Los Angles, and plans are afoot for further sites in Chicago, Berlin, Miami and Melbourne. But he seems to feel most at home at the Electric. And no wonder.
Sasha wants to put the record straight about the Electric, after we mistakenly implied in The Hill last year that another architect was responsible for it. Sasha's work was incremental to the entire project, and he was involved before the club idea had even evolved. "I came to it through another local project, the Travel Bookshop, which I was working on when my client, the investor behind the bookshop, looked into buying what was then a derelict cinema, as a bit of a gamble." This was 1997; the buyer asked Sasha to take a look at it and slowly it became clear that the cinema's problems were not simply to do with the state of the building, though the state of the building was terrible. Not only had the site fallen into disrepair - a leaking roof, rusty joists and years of neglect had left it crumbling and near to collapse - but it no longer fulfilled either the technological or the economic demands of late 20th century cinema.
The Electric, as the country's fist purpose-built cinema, was designed for another age. Films were shorter and the audience was in the building more briefly, therefore needing fewer loos and refreshments. Now, buildings need to have space for other activities. In the early days of the Electric refurb, Sasha says: "First we thought we could do it up and make it into an art cinema with maybe a film bookshop but it soon became clear that a simple cinema would be unsustainable. Film distributors impose all sorts of conditions and restrictions on cinemas, which favour chains and multiplexes over small, single-screen independents, as well as taking a large proportion of ticket sales. We thought we should do a restaurant too."
Cinemas need to make their money from other things, most notably by having a captive audience to sell things to. But the Electric had no space for selling anything and that was when their attention was drawn to the little supermarket next door. "We asked who their landlord was but couldn't get a straight answer. A land registry search brought up an address in Guernsey, which was good news because Guernsey normally means money." They contacted the owners and soon received a positive reply and an invitation to a meeting in Lancaster Road. "It was like something out of a film, because the address turned out to be the headquarters of Monsoon," says Sasha, still visibly excited by these events of 10 years ago. "The lift opened into a big studio loft space and there was Peter Simon, owner of Monsoon, saying that he really liked the scheme, and felt connected because he had started Monsoon from a stall outside the Electric." Clearly Peter was more suited to the scheme than the businessman owner, so soon a huge sum of money changed hands and ownership of the cinema was transferred to him.
Peter Simon had originally bought the shop planning to launch Monsoon Home there if he could knock it through to get access from Kensington Park Road - but it was landlocked and he couldn't, and Monsoon Home needed the smart Kensington Park Road connection, not the dusty Portobello address. So most of the space was simply wasted but connecting it to the cinema gave it a rear exit and created a vast amount of new useable space and with Peter Simon now owning both sites, and keen on the idea of a cinema and restaurant, the only thing the project still needed was permission.
"Ironically, it was the council who really insisted that we make it a club for film people and link it to the cinema," says Sasha. Normally you wouldn't in a million years get permission to knock down a supermarket and build a restaurant but here the council was worried that the site would be taken over by a ruthless developer and their Arts Council-type thinking made them want to fulfil their cultural objectives for the year, for which a mini arts centre was perfect," explains Sasha.
But still, the building was a problem. "We had a derelict building that was not near public transport, in a street that was then considered dodgy to say the least, with uncomfortable seats, leaking roof, no fire alarm, a screen that was minute when showing modern films [film stock dimensions had changed], sound you could not hear and a long history of failure." As a listed building, it was protected, which posed further problems for Sasha, both ideological and practical. "At first, buildings were listed because they were venerable and revered, like palaces and cathedrals, usually the products of a pre-industrial or technical age. Then we started believing that buildings which were produced for modern purposes were also worthy of listing. The problem is that the technology they embody is now out of date, but it is fundamental to their construction. Do you therefore restore them to their built state, but treat them like a museum, or do you update them so that they can function in the modern world?"
Eventually it was decided to restore where possible but to add contemporary additions that were clearly distinct from the original features.
Gradually, Electric House was conceived. "We knew there were a lot of film people in the area, and that there were lots of problems with cinemas in general. I remember sitting down with a film director friend at the time and making a list of reasons why we don't go to the cinema. The seats are too close together, you can't bring your drink in, the film starts at a funny time and when you get to the restaurant afterwards you've missed last orders and the whole evening is a disaster," says Sasha.
Crucial to the philosophy of the site was that the restaurant needed to be a pull in itself: "Lots of arts centres have restaurants but normally they're no good because arts centre people don't know anything about restaurants. Here, from the start it was clear that we'd get separate people involved. Jamie Oliver was interested, but he had no film connections. Groucho was interested but only because they owned 192 and didn't want anyone else in competition. And then Soho House came along."
Since then, Sasha and his company Gebler Tooth have done all of Soho House's work, including Nick Jones and Kirsty Young's house in Bassett Road W10. Currently he is working on an outpost of the club in Los Angles, and plans are afoot for further sites in Chicago, Berlin, Miami and Melbourne. But he seems to feel most at home at the Electric. And no wonder.
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