Archinect
Arkham Project

Arkham Project

Como, IT

anchor

18.13 The Kitchen of the Theater

To house the new restaurant, in connection with the main foyer of the Como Social Theater, we recovered rooms located in the ground floor and the back courtyard.The internal surface panelling refers to the theater world, using the purple-red color like the tipical curtain. To create an exciting contrast with the still white surfaces of the walls and vaults, the pannels winks to the textures of the traditional curtain, creating a rithm of matt and gloss surfaces. Faced to one of the main square of Como, the three spaces are connected each other by the intermediate floor and the same cladding draws a peculiar linear lounge.The leather chairs, the red curtains, the spotlights: all these elements of the stage evokes the mistery and the kind of surreal state of a famous scene of "Twin Peaks", movie directed by D.Lynch.The idea of “two faced” and of “mirror” involves the project of the bar counter. This volume is faced from one part to the new lounge zone, from the other to the old foyer, junction between the new space  and the old rooms.The trick is more evident in the corridor that take to the courtyard, used as an optical instrument:a geometrical form flashes at the beginnig of the corridor, created by the red cladding, anamorphosis of a rotated rectangle, and she crashes dinamically, walking forward to the back white part of the restaurant.The intermediate floor is identified by a deep railing, that perceptually, with the same high of the dining tables, enlarges the room and provides to give privacy from the lower main lounge.On the back side, inside the courtyard, a new dinner-room is leant against the medieval walls like an extention of them. Is possible to open the big window toward the outside, giving to the courtyard all the character of an open air stage.

 
Read more

Status: Built
Location: Como, IT
Firm Role: Project, work direction
Additional Credits: Marco Longatti, Luca Ambrosini with Lorenzo Guzzini, Tomas Caloprisco. Photo by Marcello Mariana