Madrid-based Zooco Estudio has created a striking restaurant within the Cantabrian Maritime Museum in Santander, Spain, that celebrates the building's brutalist architecture.
The restaurant is set within a dramatic vault of concrete paraboloids that were unearthed during the renovation, while a slatted timber ceiling pays homage to the area's shipbuilding legacy.
Zooco Estudio added a restaurant to the second floor of the Cantabrian Maritime Museum
Overlooking the tranquil waters of Santander Bay, the restaurant is located on the second floor of the landmark Cantabrian Maritime Museum, which was designed in the mid-1970s by architects Vicente Roig Forner and �ngel Hernández Morales.
The paraboloids were an original fixture of the structure and supported the roof of what was once the museum's patio. Oak details were designed to contrast the restaurant's concrete arches
The studio focused on restoring the historic fabric of the space and reviving the paraboloids, which had been concealed for around 20 years, as "a vestige of the past".
"In 2003, the building was renovated and as part of this intervention, the paraboloids were covered with a new roof and the space between them and the perimeter of the building was closed with glass, generating a covered space where there was previously a terrace," Zooco Estudio co-founder Javier Guzmán told Dezeen.
"We wanted the concrete paraboloids to be the absolute protagonists of the space and by removing the p...