Multi-Layered Transparencies Smolenicky & Partner Architektur won the contract to design a new restaurant within the former Credit Suisse headquarters building on Paradeplatz, Zurich. The conversion of the bank building into a covered shopping arcade created a new urban focus point with unique spatial qualities in the heart of the city. The Più Restaurant aims to introduce a fresher, more youthful edge to the traditional idea of exclusivity. It adds a new dimension to the public life of Bahnhofstrasse (the adjacent main shopping street) and creates a contemporary interpretation of the Zurich urban tradition of sophisticated cafes, such as "Confisserie Sprüngli", situated opposite. As an open room of glass, the concept plays with the fascination and complexity of multiple transparencies and spatial transitions. A new connection with the surrounding city is created by seamless transitions between the internal and external areas. The entire space becomes unified through a continuous flow across different layers of transparency from the Paradeplatz main entrance through to the Baerengasse patio. The grand curtain wall, the continuous perimeter sofa, and the sweeping lines of the bar counter and kitchen front mediate between the rectangular geometries of the existing structure and the new courtyard enclosure. The intensity of views through the glass cube is controlled by floor to ceiling curtains. Multiple layers of fabrics with varying degrees of transparency from sheer to opaque allow - depending on the chosen layering - just enough glimpses of the interior to entice the passer-by while protecting the privacy of guests inside. The project will prove itself as a beautiful canvas for the colourful urban social life. It tries to not merely understand aesthetics as an architectural dimension - it emphasises the celebration of "beauty in use".
Smolenicky & Partner Architektur
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