Café Restaurant in the Az W

The Café Restaurant in the Az W is currently closed. We hope to be able to reopen for you soon and will keep you up to date on our website!

The design and realisation of this café/restaurant in 2001 is by French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean Philippe Vassal. The skillful building with minimal use of materials shown here is now considered typical of their approach. Twenty years later, in 2021, Lacaton & Vassal were awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize for their work.

„As a reaction to the large building we had an idea about making something light, something really refreshing. We also had the notion of a Turkish cafe where one sits really comfortably and can sit and talk for a long time. We had this brick vault and the idea behind the project was simply to hang a ‚canopy‘ in the space. This canopy is made of Oriental tiling.“ (Anne Lacaton)

Working in collaboration with the architects, Vienna-based Turkish artist Asiye Kolbai-Kafalier developed the pattern of the tiling especially for this space, and had the tiles handmade in Istanbul. A bare unplastered concrete block wall separates the kitchen area from the space where the guests sit. The way it is positioned means that this wall is not visible from outside, therefore when standing in the courtyard the impression is that the vault spans uninterrupted over the entire space. Thanks to the large areas of glazing the restaurant itself is like a light-flooded hall and has a direct relationship to the outdoor spaces of the complex. To achieve a timeless and natural quality the furniture is deliberately kept simple and consists of tables and chairs that are manufactured in series.