The premises of Adlerhof have been part of Vienna since the early 1880s. For much of that time, it has been a place to eat, drink and linger, changing its outfit with each passing era. Over the past seventy years alone, it has worn many looks, each leaving something behind.
Together with Archiguards, we approached the project not as a reinvention, but as a careful reawakening. The idea was to let Adlerhof remember itself. The original Viennese vaulted ceiling was reconstructed, restoring its sense of generosity overhead. Along the way, traces from the 1970s resurfaced: tapestries, furniture, fragments that had waited their turn. These discoveries now shape the atmosphere once more, lending the space its particular character.
New furniture was designed in conversation with the decades that defined Adlerhof’s identity, and placed alongside original pieces by Austrian architects and designers. Tables by Oswald Haerdtl, bespoke Thonet chairs and Bauhaus chandeliers sit comfortably together, as though they have always shared the room.
The walls tell their own stories: signed football posters and yellowed notes of open tabs from 1987 serve as small records of everyday – never meant to be preserved, but impossible to ignore. Instead of tidying them away, we allowed them to remain. They are an essential part of the place.
- Category: Hospitality
- Completed: 2019
- Location: Vienna, Austria
Photographs by © Atelier Karasinski. This project was published by IDEAT, Print Mag and Die Presse.