RED PIF RESTAURANT AND WINE SHOP | Aulík Fišer architekti

You have to find your own way with the wines the client sells and only then may they be truly appreciated. We intentionally applied the same thinking to the interior of this wine tasting oriented restaurant and devoted the greatest effort to making our work invisible. Our interior has to be a background allowing the enjoyment of good wine and food here and now. The interior is determined by the high quality of craftsmanship of materials linked to wine producing – oak wood for the floor and bar counter, and reinforcement bars (used in vineyards as supports for vine stems) for bottle shelves. In course of filling the shelves with bottles they disappear from view and transform into a wall of bottles. When rooms on the ground floor of a house from the 19th century were cleaned of disturbing modifications their authentic quality surfaced again. After the impersonally cool wall paints were removed, the history of the house appeared – remnants of original paints and plasters mingle with scars left after the house was structurally modified. Touching them is a special experience; seeing their graphic quality. All this is complemented by a painting by Martina Chloupa. The existing shop windows provide contact with the exterior so important for a restaurant in a city centre. We designed rotating screens for evening wine tastings or private celebrations; in their structure can be seen a free interpretation of the method of storing of bottles in cardboard boxes. They allow the shop window to close completely. A visitor then finds himself in a wine cellar separated from the reality of a city. Yet the shop window does not turn blind, but transforms into the restaurant’s big logo. THE FRONT GARDEN TO THE RED PIF WINE DEPOT At the time we were finishing the interior of the Red Pif Wine Depot on the ground floor of the opposite house approximately a year ago, a small triangular space ca 13x5 m at the corner of Betlémská and U Dobřenských streets adjacent to the wall to Náprstkovo museum was a rather forgotten and uncared for place. It was a waste container site full of mess and stinking of urine. Last year we designed a front garden to the restaurant here – after obtaining approval from the owner of the site we only had to erect symbolic fencing from unplaned boards, turning it into a quiet place where people may sit in the centre under crowns of fully-grown maple trees. The wine depot owner enthusiastically accepted our idea that pieces of art by young artists could be exhibited in front of the entrance. Following an agreement with the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery we installed the statue Sadrokarton story/Plasterboard story by Jakub Jurásek here. Everything was finished in two days – mostly DIY – and ready to use.