Café Cathedral in the Antwerp
The former Chapel of Sint-John in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp is rebuild into a meeting place for churchgoers and tourists. The bar, designed in a contemporary gothic style, serves as central greeting and reception space. Eye-pleasing and functional.
The entire design and furniture has plenty of gothic and thematic references to the inside of the Cathedral: chapels, annexes, porches, cross ribs, vaulted ceilings, objects of art, ... The buttresses and arches are translated in the carpentry structure. Therefore it gives the impression being turned inside out: sculptured on the outside, lining on the inside.
All woodwork is done in French Douglas Fir, the European version of the Oregon Pine - in wich the original floor was made. All furniture (tables, chairs, bar) is custom made.
The bar rises up from the floor, as do the towers from the cathedral. The serving apertures in the bar are shaped after the windows of the Cathedral. Gothic with a twist: four-leaf clover, a curved triangle and a pentagon. The color blue is to be found in the stained-glass window inside the Cathedral.
The building of the Cathedral itself started in 1352 and was completed in 1521. It is the largest gothic church in the Low Countries, and Unesco heritaged. Nowadays it receives 280.000 visitors per year. The Cathedral houses plenty precious artifacts, including four paintings by Peter Paul Rubens.
