Israel's 1940’s bakery upscaled to chic industrial grunge café

Compiled by Team IAnD

Photography: Shai  Epstien; courtesy Ron Shenkin Studio

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Kofinas cafe is the happening social hang-out at Tzur Moshe’s museum and documentation centre premises in Israel...

Ron Shenkin Studio has recently restored a 1940’s building in Tzur Moshe, Israel to its original splendour to house a museum and documentation centre with a café alongside.

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Designed as an important part of the venue, the Kofinas cafe integrates cultural details by way of tabletop graphics, and wooden shelves displaying antique items and books constituting modular partitions to define and demarcate the space; and engage the diners.

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Bricks from the original Tabun oven (a clay stove used for baking bread and pitta) are interestingly reused for window thresholds and at the bar structure.  Adding a touch of intrigue is a large window facing north towards the courtyard that consists of five separate doors, each rotating and connected on a central axis. This unique design allows natural indirect light to filter in.

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The ceiling is the most eye-catching aspect as the honest open joints vie for attention, indulging the eye with their zigzag pattern and busy demeanour in complete contrast to the comfortably spaced out interiors.

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Over the courtyard is a beautiful pergola supported by posts that are designed with a slight bend at the top and resemble flowers. Greenery is well integrated in the interiors as well as along the various trails leading to the building being flanked by pretty flower beds and vegetation.

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The museum itself is conceived as a cultural and communal meeting place, which collaborates with and for the community - a space that presents history and correlates the present in a harmonized way. 

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An area of 260 sq. m. is treated as a dynamic space, where furniture can be rearranged to accommodate different needs for different occasions; even transform it into a closed space for meetings. A welcoming room at the entrance displays different historical items, images and videos from Tzur Moshe's settlement period, and more current community information. In addition, it houses computer stations for the public to browse through memorable documents and images.