Project description:
The Hamburg, Germany based Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation awards grants to artists on a quarterly basis to fund specific proposed projects. Categories include visual arts, music, performance, and literature. In 2019, the foundation purchased a former firehouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for their New York home. The cellar will be expanded to house a recording studio, built as a box-in-a-box construction for maximum sound isolation. The ground floor will be an event space for display and performance of the work of the foundation’s grantees. The foundation desired a deco inspired cafe atmosphere. A decorative paneling system was developed using a base grid of curves that branch apart from each other and intersect to form a diagonal grid at the ceiling. This base geomety has an organic yet tectonic quality. A dark bronze armature is applied to the curves, at varying depths and thicknesses: heavy at the bottom and light at the top. Panels of walnut or acoustic fabric are applied within the framework. Lighting emerges out of the frames. The whole system serves as a literal ‘frame’ for the performance stage.
