A statue of the Virgin Mary, requested by the clients against every convention of nightclub design, became the conceptual starting point for La Perla, the new interior by Bolzano-based studio NOA inside a listed historic vault in Merano, Italy. The 300 square meters (3,229 square feet) of underground space came with heritage protections that left almost no room to touch the existing stone walls. NOA turned that restriction into the project’s defining logic, building an entire spatial narrative — from a glass-enclosed shrine to twin lounges named Inferno and Paradise — around the tension between sacred and profane.
Heritage constraints shaped every decision before design work even began. The venue occupies vaulted underground space beneath a listed historic building in Merano, and nothing structural could be touched — the massive natural stone walls and centuries-old masonry vaults set the real parameters, so the existing fabric itself became the project’s defining material. NOA’s response was to work with those limits rather than against them, the same instinct behind adaptive reuse projects like Velvet Studio’s Duro Club inside a former Milan cement factory: rather than concealing ventilation ducts behind a suspended ceiling, the design leaves them exposed, finished in dark tones so they read as architecture rather than infrastructure. “The encounter between old and new had to remain an integral part of the story we wanted to tell. For this reason, we deliberately left every installation attached to the historic vault visible rather than concealing it,” NOA says.
A shrine at the threshold greets visitors before they even reach the dance floor. Despite La Perla’s identity as a contemporary nightlife destination, the clients insisted that a statue of the Virgin Mary occupy a central position within the entrance sequence — known as La Perla herself, and serving as the symbolic patron of the venue. Visitors descend a dark staircase lit softly from the sides before encountering the radiant figure enclosed within an illuminated glass shrine, an effect staged so the sculpture appears almost like an apparition emerging from the darkness.
A recurring circle ties the entrance sequence to the rest of the club. Suspended above the Madonna, a bespoke circular light installation reinterprets the traditional halo, introducing a geometric motif that reappears throughout mirrors, bespoke furniture and lighting fixtures. Past the shrine, an open dance floor with uninterrupted geometry becomes the venue’s social centre, and directly opposite it an elevated DJ booth carries the same circular language: a large halo-like light suspended above the console turns the performer into the room’s visual focus.
Heaven above hell, quite literally, defines the club’s spatial hierarchy. “You could say it is a playful interpretation of familiar clichés: heaven is physically positioned above hell, each immersed in its own distinctive colour palette. Elements such as the spiral-shaped light installation floating like a cloud above heaven and the dance floor, contrasted with the fog machine in hell, further reinforce the concept through striking visual effects,” NOA says. That dialogue reaches its fullest expression in two VIP lounges: Inferno embraces darkness through rich red lighting, dark materials, drifting fog and a suspended cross, an atmosphere intentionally dense that shifts constantly through layers of light and shadow — a register of immersive nightlife interior design that other studios have explored in their own way, including Clap Studio’s redesign of Oven Club in Valencia.
Paradise unfolds as a lighter counterpoint just steps away, forming, with Inferno below, the Inferno and Paradise VIP lounges. Soft blue hues, luminous cloud-like light sculptures and gentle gradients create a calm that contrasts deliberately with the intensity beneath, reinforcing the project’s central narrative: heaven quite literally overlooks hell. Neon lettering and illuminated slogans run through both lounges as part of the furniture and textiles, reacting continuously with programmable lighting to keep the atmosphere shifting through the night.
Hammered stainless steel and mirrored metal continue the dialogue between old and new, paired with holographic film and a neutral grey floor set against the preserved stone walls, while custom polycarbonate light panels were precisely adapted to the historic vaulted ceiling to carry the club’s centerpiece installation. Even the sanitary areas keep the narrative going: distinguished only by colour scheme — pink and violet for the women’s area, blue and green for the men’s — sharing an open mirror zone that carries the visual dialogue to the last corner of the building. It’s a detail easy to miss on a first visit, tucked far from the Madonna at the top of the stairs, yet it holds to the same conviction: even the parts of a nightclub no one photographs deserve a place in the story.
La Perla by NOA | Location: Merano, Italy — Year: 2026— Key materials: hammered stainless steel, mirrored metal, holographic film, custom polycarbonate light panels, preserved natural stone