Bar

Between September 2013 and January 2014, the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp celebrated its 350th anniversary with various events throughout the city under the title Happy Birthday Dear Academie. Belgian artist Philip Metten was invited to contribute to the celebrations with a temporary installation in Café Homey: a small, well-known establishment in the city. Already experienced in the transformation of different spaces, Metten turned the café into a sculpture. He created a street-side façade that incorporated an expressive, symmetrical, mechanical-looking composition of metal-framed mirroring set within an ornamental, dark green, marble surround. The entrance to the café was an integral part of the artwork and concealed within the left-hand side of the composition. Behind this façade, a small, sparsely furnished interior could be found, clad throughout with wooden panels.

He simply treated the bar as a sculpture, a space – a place where functionality is never subservient to aesthetics, or vice versa.

Author: Asli çiçek. This text has been published in the Architecture Review Flanders N°11. Embedded Architecture.