KOOK / Amunátegui Valdés Architects

Architects: Amunátegui Valdés architects
Location: Santiago, Chile
Client: Bistró & Restaurant Köök
Project Year: 2011
Photographs: Maria Luisa Murillo, Juan Pablo Molina, Alejandro Valdés

The floor plan was organized in two rectangular areas linked to one another. The entrance area hosts the bar, the cash register, and the main exit to the terrace located in the backyard. The open kitchen and dining tables were placed in the second area, which is larger in size, and leads to a service pavilion comprising restrooms, storage, cold store, and offices. Two separated, pyramidal shaped roofs define the spatial configuration of both the bar and the dining areas, at the time that strengthen each one’s own particularities.

The covering of the pyramidal ceiling consists of rough, painted pinewood boards, from which a series of 34 handcrafted lamps hang, which where especially produced for the restaurant. The hanging lamps help in the definition of a transitional height, that between the ceiling and the walls, and add to the interior atmosphere through the shine and reflections peculiar to crystal and bronze. The walls, in turn, were faced with white, stamped tiles, which, grouped in sets of four, add to the recognition of a larger bas-relief pattern. The floor was covered with red clay floor tiles, and the doors and windows’ marquetry was assembled using painted, finger-joint pinewood. The cash register, bar, and kitchen counters were made in metallic structure covered with marble boards. The rest of the furniture –benches, long tables, small size cupboards, and shelves– were made equally in finger-joint pinewood, and left unpainted. The dining tables and chairs were chosen from the Thonet firm catalogue.