Vienna | B3 Designers

28/03

The Daniel Hotel, Vienna

The Daniel Hotel occupies one of the first curtain wall structures in Austria. The modern 1960′s structure was designed by renowned architect Georg Lippert and its raw aesthetic is complimented by a Cor-Ten steel sign that looks like it was taken from the same era.

It is not just the austere structure it occupies that makes the hotel unusual – The Daniel is also challenging the ‘standard hotel format’. Instead of a conventional reception desk, the reception area is located in the hotel’s private shop that stocks exceptional items for discerning travelers whilst also providing facilities for checking in and out. It also houses a eclectic bakery that provides an atmospheric place for guests to enjoy their breakfasts and passersby to indulge in some delicious Austrian baked goods. In keeping with the architecture the reception area is furnished with vintage furniture, including pieces from a a 1960s fashion boutique, upholstered with bold patterned fabric, as well as contemporary pieces like the Donna Wilson chairs and more industrial pallet coffee tables.

Bedrooms are more reserved and pared back. The interior design makes full use of the architectural fabric of the building, contrasting exposed concrete ceilings with light walls and large timber panels. Furniture is kept to a minimum, save for the odd hamock; as is colour, with only a few deep green accents. The rooms, although not very Viennese, embody the calm, elegant atmosphere of the city.

(Images via Yatzer)

07/10

The Great Viennese Coffee House Experiment, Vienna Design Week

The Great Viennese Coffee House Experiment is work-in-progress exhibition that took its cue from Gregor Eichinger’s lecture “An Abstract of an Essay on the Origin of Coffeehouses and Varieties through Artificial and Natural Selection“. The exhibition explores the current state of the infamous Viennese coffee houses, where ‘sit-and-sip’ has been a tradition in the city for more than 300 years, and speculates on the future of this Viennese institution.

Coffee houses have been a part of social infrastructure of Vienna long before the phenomenon emerged in most other cities, and while each coffee house has its own distinct design and identity, there is undeniably an underlying atmosphere in each that embodies Viennese culture.

Alfred Polgar, a journalist who is famous for his wit for the city’s coffee houses wrote of the well known Café Central: “Its inhabitants are, for the most part, people who are misanthropes, and whose aversion to other people is as acute as their need for people: who want to be alone, but must have company to do so. The habitué of the Central is a person who derives no sense of belonging from his family, profession, or party; the Café Central comes to his rescue, inviting him to join and escape. Its customers know, love, and underestimate one another. Even those who profess not to know each other regard this non-relationship as a kind of relationship; mutual dislike serves as a unifying force at the Central, a sort of camaraderie. Everyone knows about everybody. The Café Central is a village in the center of the metropolis, steaming with gossip, curiosity, and slander.”

Julia Landsiedl, 2011’s MAK designer in residence, makes observations and conducts interviews around the coffeehouse scene, collecting examples from actual practice while also sifting through the MAK collection in search of helpful thematic clues under direction of Gregor Eichinger.

The exhibition takes the form of a cognitively compiled and annotated map of historic and contemporary coffee houses throughout the city, along with a three dimensional ‘collage’ of artifacts associated with this culture.

“I have always been fascinated by the Viennese coffeehouse as the core of our culture of thinking and art. In the future we will have to take care to secure the existence of the coffeehouse in the 21st century.” Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Managing Director of departure.

“Coffeehouses encourage their guests to develop and spend time cultivating their own habits. These are mechanisms that offer us time and space, channeling our attention.” Gregor Eichinger, architect and designer who assumed direction of The Great Viennese Café: A Laboratory.

(Images via jeplus.at)

06/09

Institute of Fine Arts Vienna by Studio Gruber

The Institute of Fine Arts Vienna have very successfully integrated new classrooms, a computer lab and a photo studio into a former imperial stage set production building by Gottfried Semper and Karl Hasenauer. The 1877 building is beautifully complemented by ‘pods’ constructed of CNC-milled plywood, using roughly 1600 individual elements. Although each unit is geometrically unique they are derived from a common prototype. The cleverly designed rooms not only add a contemporary feel to the space, they also integrate seating, workstations and storage into their structures, unifying structure, function and aesthetics.

(images via roots)