Gastown's anticipated Bauhaus Restaurant finally opened their doors, bringing a new style of German cuisine to Western Canada and creating Vancouver's new hot spot! Bauhaus Restaurant, led by celebrated Chef Stefan Hartmann and owned by film director Uwe Boll, has finally opened this week after months of renovations. Most of the intensive renovations were to the base structure of the building. The building, originally built in around 1890, is one of the cities many historical treasures. Formerly known as The Boulder Hotel, our building had to undergo major structural upgrades to make sure it was up to code: major seismic upgrades, fire stopping, all new air ducts, water, sewer and gas. We were astonished to discover that some of the water system's structure included the original pipes from 1890, which crumbled when removed. Over the last 100 years, the building has gone through many changes; from its early years as a saloon and bank, to its most recent home to Bonita's Restaurant. The renovation was led by Vancouver designer Andrea Greenway. The goal of the design was to keep as much of the original structure as possible, including the original 1890s brick and marble, and the historical Bank Safe: "it was a real challenge to keep the integrity of the building and incorporate our Bauhaus design concept. Modernist design can be a bit austere, so I hope that we have created a nice balance of modern and warm." Bauhaus Restaurant is named after the famous design movement from Germany, which seamlessly marries form and function. Many of the dining room elements were custom designed in the original Bauhaus style. The dining chairs were inspired by Marcel Bruer, an architect, furniture designer and teacher at the Bauhaus School of Design. The custom bar chairs, handmade by local designer Oren Darel, were inspired by the original T-Chair design created by Kelly, Little and Katavolos in 1952. We put our own twist on this design: we added extra height to introduce some layering to the restaurant space.
For our clean and sleek logo design, we turned to Vancouver marketing agency Kihada Kreative. Knowing the Bauhaus team's emphasis on architecture and design, Kihada Kreative "wanted to incorporate that history and reputation into the branding utilizing the restaurant’s iconic landmark location at One West Cordova st. This continues the linear, angular theme and creates the feel of a simplistic building block in the negative space of the letter." For the name itself, they took a minimalist approach that focused on a "building block" theme: "Stripped down to cornered lines which openly contain & embody the name Bauhaus, the construction of the design as a whole is minutely accurate, to line up every element as part of a structurally strong, perfect block. Precision and perfection in the corners, lines and arrangement compliment the classic font chosen for a high luxury feel."
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