The story
In the early 1990s a group of young Slovenian businessmen, operating under the name of Evolution Inc., decided to sell all their business assets, get international loans, and invest in what was anticipated to become a trans-national chain of dance entertainment complexes of the future. As opposed to other similar projects in the world at the time, this one was approached heavily from a cultural point of view rather than purely commercial. A well-known Italian architect — maestro Gianni Gavioli — was invited to collaborate on the development. Before the first sketches were laid down, the architect spent over a month in Slovene Istria, learning about its culture, architecture and legends while meeting with locals from many generations.
In 1994 works began on what developed to be the maestro's life masterpiece, combining the feel of local cultures with stories of Charles Baudelaire, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Due to its significance, the IRWIN artist group, part of Neue Slowenische Kunst movement, suggested the name of the new venue to be Ambasada Gavioli (Embassy of Gavioli). It opened in December 1995.
Despite the initial optimism, based on rapid development of independent Slovenia as an emerging cultural and economic power in the region, as well as on the overall faith in positive future emerging from the global Rave movement, the venue did not attract as large an audience as expected from the start. 1996 was a year of initial struggle for Ambasada Gavioli.
Hard work and structural reorganization eventually started to attract the attention of cultural circles, national and international media, and ever-wider audiences, resulting in Ambasada Gavioli being recognised as one of the world's top 10 most prestigious and trendy electronic music venues in 1997 and one of the top clubbing destinations in Southern Europe.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ambasada Gavioli, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3