concrete doubles space and function in cafe design for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen

Compiled by Team IAnD

Text & Visualisations: Courtesy concrete

Read Time: 2 mins 30 secs

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Concrete gives a peek into its design for the café and event space at Depot – Rotterdam’s new building that will house Museum Boijmans van Beuningen…

The doors of the new Depot building, part of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, will open in 2021. A special, fully mirrored, bowl-shaped building designed by MVRDV, it will be the first museum in the world where the public will have full access to the art collection stored in the depot. Atop the reflective bowl on the 6th floor will be a publicly accessible roof garden and terrace. And, in the middle of this 'green forest' will be situated a glass cross-shaped pavilion that hosts a café-restaurant and event space. Concrete has designed the interior for both spaces.

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The two spaces are aligned in a single plane, opposite each other across an atrium. The main event space is intended to be fully flexible and lockable at request. It is designed using large wooden pivot doors, which act as dynamic walls. When the doors are open, they connect to the wooden floor strips and light rails in the mirrored ceiling. In the middle of the row of pivot doors, there is a freestanding volume, completely covered with satin stainless-steel panels. Behind the folding doors, a pantry bar and cloakroom can be revealed during parties and events. The pantry bar also has the characteristic black and white stripes pattern as its back wall. The mobile bar elements, reception desk and DJ table, with a striped pattern of wooden slats in different directions, can be placed in any desired arrangement.

restaurant impression

event space impression

show kitchen impression

The cafe-restaurant with seats for up to 140 people will also have a fully flexible interior, so presentations, lectures and exhibitions could also take place there, in addition to the main event space. Instead of placing a collection of individual tables, which normally would have to be moved and stored when not in use, concrete designed 10 long, sleek fixed tables. These tables, made entirely out of wood, have a unique feature: they can be folded. When folded up, the tabletops, as vertical wall sections, connect perfectly to the floor and ceiling strips, which are also be made of wood. The result: an open, flexible room with five frames placed one behind the other, literally framing the view of the roof garden and the city of Rotterdam as a true work of art.

On both sides of the cafe-restaurant's flexible areas, the open 'show' kitchen and bar will mimic the museum's famous graphic identity - a black and white striped tiled back wall. The front of the kitchen will sport white terrazzo, while the opposite bar will be made of black terrazzo, maintaining perfect balance. The kitchen and bar will be housed in wooden volumes, with the words' cafe' and 'restaurant' placed on the corner in pink neon letters. The public roof garden and terrace will be accessible from behind the bar. 

The design fits well with the progressive and unconventional character of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.

Fact File:

Project: café restaurant + event space, 6e floor Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen

Client: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Designer: concrete

Project Team: concrete Rob Wagemans, Bart de Beer, Hilka Ackermann, Femke Zumbrink, Erik van Dillen, Valentina Venturi

Total Area: 500 sq. m. 

Project location: Rotterdam

Opening: 2021