The Warehouse is a historic building located in Chicago, Illinois in the United States, best known for the same-named nightclub catering to the gay and alternative communities that was established in 1977 under the direction of Robert "Robbie" Williams.

The Warehouse is specifically associated with Chicago house, and was the genre's birthplace under its first musical director, DJ Frankie Knuckles.

[citation needed] DJ History reports: "The style of music now known as house was so named after a shortened version of his [Knuckles'] club.

The Warehouse was patronized primarily by gay black and Latino men,[4] who came to dance to disco music played by the club's resident DJ, Frankie Knuckles.

House is connected to disco in that "it mutated the form, intensifying the very aspects of the music that most offended white rockers and black funkateers: the mechanic repetition, the synthetic and electronic textures, the rootlessness, the ‘depraved’ hypersexuality and ‘decadent’ druggy hedonism.

"[5] Knuckles also used to alter songs by adding synthetic handclaps, special hi-hat patterns and bass loops.