FVTVR SETS OUR HEARTS ON FIRE

words by FRANCK ALAN-STEED
editor and art direction by JOY SINANIAN
photography by VINCENT BOUSSEREZ

The Seine is far from a quiet, gentle river; it hides, discreetly, a few secrets that only the truly passionate ever get to know. Among them stands FVTVR, a techno club that doesn’t just occupy a slice of quay beneath the Cité de la Mode et du Design, but has spent the last two years on a delicate mission: to light up Parisian nights already overflowing with musical hotspots of every kind. Not with just any music, though, but with techno imagined as a culture in its own right, literally promising a radiant future to a genre whose vocation is to remain experimental and open.

So where do you find this one‑of‑a‑kind place that barely appears on any map? It sits quietly at 34 quai d’Austerlitz, and has quickly established itself as one of those rare spots where you can savor otherworldly techno, weekend after weekend. The entrance doesn’t reveal itself at first glance. You have to look for it along the river, discover it like a discreet passage to another world. Once you step through the door, you descend underground and arrive on a vast raw concrete floor, all clean lines that borrow as much from Berlin’s aesthetic as from the Bauhaus imagination: minimalist forms serving unapologetic functionalism. At the center, a solid concrete booth, designed like a cockpit to steer sound, rhythm and light for hours on end, driven by the inimitable gestures of the DJs who take command one after another.

The place has a truly unique identity. It feels at once like a warehouse and a shelter, offering a protective case for creativity you’ll struggle to find anywhere else in Paris. Its atypical layout allows Emmanuel Gunther, artistic director, to gather some of the most exciting artists of the moment and offer the crowd an eclectic program. You can glide from Kid Cudi to DVS1, from Seth Troxler to Arca, and in every case you end up with a singular vibration, amplified by the magic of the space.

Techno itself has reinvented its codes since the 2000s. Social media has thrown a spotlight on scenes that once belonged only to insiders. Electronic music has become a global culture, and even the underground has adopted some mainstream codes. Yet neither social networks nor the diversification of styles have held techno back; the genre keeps getting more diverse, more hybrid, and perhaps even more demanding in its quest for expression and sensation.

DJs know this well, and turn their creativity into a rare and precious resource by combining their talents—like François X, who sparked deep emotion playing alongside other DJs with radically different sensibilities, such as Mac Declos or Grace Dahl, in back‑to‑back sets of indescribable intensity. That’s part of what keeps DJs so inventive: a constant curiosity, a need to season their style with new material, whether in continuity with the past or in deliberate rupture. Developing a strong identity, Eman confides, means working through inspiration and then reinterpretation of the music that shaped you. Being able to stand in the lineage of your idols while carving out your own path is what brings the promise of a kind of ideal fulfillment.

In this raw, futuristic shell, music becomes much more than a soundtrack; it turns into a shared language between the crowd and its conductor. That’s also why FVTVR has so quickly found its place in the Parisian landscape, offering a program designed like a guided journey into the unknown. Emmanuel Gunther quickly imagined three types of nights, with the biggest drawing more than 700 people: “FVTVR Invite” for evenings with a strong artistic direction, “FVTVR Host” for collectives that share the club’s culture, and “FVTVR Curated By” to spotlight emerging artists the house wants to champion. Each format becomes a vehicle of its own, in which DJs write their personal vision of the night.

To celebrate its second anniversary, FVTVR is about to suspend time and throw a birthday party in its own image: from Friday, February 6 at midnight to Sunday the 8th at 10 p.m., nearly 48 hours of almost non‑stop celebration. A marathon during which twenty‑four DJs will take turns in the booth—between residents, new faces and long‑time regulars—for a festival of intoxicating sound and visuals. On the bill: Jen Cardini B2B with Sally C, Eman B2B with Mathys Lenne, and Louis The 4th B2B with Marie Julie, artists who embody the club’s desire to bring generations together for a night charged with emotion. Just one more blazing evening when, once again, the Seine will be anything but a calm, quiet river.

Get your tickets to EXTENDED BIRTHDAY from February 6 till February 8 here.