Bakery and Wine Bar in Milan by Studio Wok

Studio Wok has designed a bakery and wine bar in Milan together with gastronomer Alice Yamada and the cook Yoji Tokuyoshi. The concept unites Japanese aesthetics and the Italian lifestyle.

The architects designed the bakery and wine bar with the name of Pan Milano as an intermediate space between indoors and outdoors. The venue located on the ground floor of a corner building has large chestnut wood-framed windows that open it up to the wider neighbourhood.

The framing effect is intensified by a fine border in galvanised sheet metal that along an expressive facade bench of green fibreglass grids forms an even stronger connection to the city. 

Interior design

The interior varies between poetic reduction and playful expressivity, with the design duality also reflecting the venue's uses. The wine bar, despite the presence of its monolithic-looking counter in black stained chestnut, remains somewhat in the background, whereas the bakery counter in the same material as the facade bench draws attention with the sculptural shaping of the respective fibreglass grid panels. The stainless steel bread shelves at the rear take their cue from the frame structure of the windows.   

Spatial overlap

Despite the separation of the wine bar and bakery, the architects paid attention to creative and functional unity: a wooden bench set below the windows forms a connection between the two areas, while colour-graduated fabric panels suspended from the ceiling create a spatial overlap. Recalling so-called noren – traditional Japanese curtains – they reflect the daylight entering the space in fine nuances of colour. 

A further reference to Japanese culture can be seen in the filigree sliding doors formed of translucent laminate panels in wooden frames and separating the washbasin anteroom to the toilets from the rest of the premises. Plus the blackness of the furniture is reminiscent of yakisugi, a traditional Japanese method of protecting wood by charring its surface.

Japan as inspiration

White walls form a plain backdrop for the furniture and serve as a setting for the green fabric panels and fibreglass grid panels. At the transition from wine bar to bakery, the concept's sculptural approach is underscored by a water basin in rough-hewn moltrasio stone that in its natural simplicity is a further reference to Japanese design principles.