MASSOLIT COOKS
There is a cafe in the middle of Jewish district in Cracow (Poland) that serves original New York-style cheesecake and traditional hamantaschen cookies. It combines multicultural influences and local atmosphere. The historical neighbourhood was an inspiration for Polish architects, Barbara Nawrocka and Dominika Wilczynska from miastopracownia office to create a vivid, modern meeting place with architectural elements and details derived from the past.
The most characteristic element of the interior is a round hole in the wall. It connects two rooms and creates a view frame for each part of the place. Looking through it, we can observe a ceramic mosaic on one side and a decorative metalwork that is a wall plants hanger on the other. Each one is a contemporary reference to modernism. Architects designed the mosaic pattern and decided to use waste ceramic tiles to be arranged manually. The layout of the divisions of the metalwork and the tiles joints create some kind of a mirror image of each other.
A reference to tradition is also manifested by the reuse of old, abandoned furniture. Chairs in the café are old school furniture bought at an online auction and painted black. The benches along the walls were made of wood from old veneer cabinets from the 1950s. Only brass keyholes glisten in the backrests can remind us of the previous function of the material.
Particular details and surfaces like the front of the counter and the round hole in the wall are covered with copper. The material changes its colour so with a time it will match even better with various shades of old wood. Architects exposed layers of the floor, displayed raw concrete and covered it with transparent resin. Miastopracownia refined and planned every detail. They tried to reveal the history of the building by exposing layers of plaster but let the history pick the wall colour.
