La Biglietteria is a restaurant, bar and cafe, whose name – the ‘box office’ – comes from its previous function. In this refined, painstaking project, the central core of the building with late-Liberty lines extending for an entire block near the waterfront, contained the box office and foyer of the historic Teatro Kursaal. The obvious reference to the natural forms that were protagonists of the flapper aesthetic in the 1920s in America pays tribute to a glorious past. The interior design by the Bari-based studio Small – Soft Metropolitan Architecture & Landscape Lab, preserves and recreates the inimitable atmosphere, with a New Deco style that contributes to conserve what remained of the original structure, such as the bardiglio flooring, the vaults, the wooden decorations of the three entrance doors, and the space of the box office of the theater, with its original glass sign.
La Biglietteria restaurant and bar. Ph © Priscilla Tangari
The furnishings are mostly made to measure by local craftsmen, and the lighting fixtures by Karman have been designed and chosen in keeping with the architectural characteristics of the spaces, reinterpreted in a modern way with vivid but never garish colors.
On the back wall of the restaurant a series of interrupted arches alternate with mirrors, colored cladding and inserts of Vienna straw, while impressive Snoob chandeliers with 16 arms, in black coated aluminium – designed by Matteo Ugolini – reinterpret the classic design of antique candelabras with their volutes, as well as the circular motif of the arches and decorations.
La Biglietteria restaurant and bar. Ph © Priscilla Tangari
In the American bar zone the large iron structures of the bottle racks form a backdrop for a sinuous wooden counter, featuring a motif of sticks that repeats in the four Nox glass suspension lamps designed by Laura Alesi and Silvia Braconi.
La Biglietteria restaurant and bar. Ph © Priscilla Tangari
