Entirely Handmade Bar Restaurant: Journey Pub in Bucharest

Designed by Alexandra and Cristina from  joocastudio , Journey Pub is a unique bar restaurant, where every corner has its story. They worked on it with a great deal of enthusiasm, they put our creativity to a test inventing many installations and decorative objects with the main theme of the restaurant: “Journey”.

According to the architects: The beneficiaries wanted to achieve a warm and relaxing atmosphere, with elements that have great personality, contoured around the main theme of the restaurant: “Journey”. We concentrated on finding the key elements and transposed them into installations and decorations.  The main spaces of the pub are: a saloon of 150 sqm, with a small stage where concerts and different events take place, two rooms of 55 and 30 sqm in the basement, where clients can play board games, paint or model, and a garden terrace with lots of green areas. The challenge was to decorate these spaces in different unique styles, according to each one’s function, while unifying them in accordance to the restaurant’s theme. For the saloon we chose sepia tones, desaturated colors and elements  that create a retro chic atmosphere. Without doubt, the handmade hot air balloons that float in penumbra, are the key element of this space. The circular soffit in the center of the ceiling has been transformed in a painted metaphoric compass that shows directions and real distances to some main cities of the world. The paintings also represent icons from the same cities, and the two walls with hundreds of postcards complete the travel story.

While the ground floor is decorated in a more elegant vintage style, the spaces in the basement have a more playful note, with strong colors, cheerful paintings, and unique light fixtures made of hand painted teacups and kettles. The non-smoking room has easily gained the status of “the play room” due to the big painting on the walls with a perfect week-end journey, the swing chairs and the Nintendo game console. The vault room represented one of the biggest challenges of this project. We really liked the arched ceiling and wanted to emphasize it, while covering its quite visible imperfections. As a response, the idea of a dynamic butterfly swarm came up, directed to the exterior, to freedom. We added six directional led spots, which highlight the shape of the vault and creates beautiful shadows. The result was a dreamy atmosphere, completed by the warm and intimate light. The terrace is probably the most relaxing space in Journey Pub. The 250 lights that hang on the central corridor makes us think of a forest invaded by fireflies.  Four shutters reveal canvases painted with stories from the four cardinal points. Each wall is different from the next one, and wherever they sit, the clients discover many journey elements: postcards, hippie vans, airplanes, bottles with messages, lanterns and many more.