Forest Restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art Paris by Uchronia.

Multidisciplinary collective Uchronia has designed a new restaurant within the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Conceived as a refuge in the heart of the city, the interior takes on the air of a brutalist lair combining concrete textures, creeping vegetation and a hushed decor, developing a narrative that evokes a forest-like conception.

A remnant of the 1937 Universal Exhibition, for which the museum was built, the space is a treasure trove of brutalism with its concrete columns, very high ceilings and constructivist volumes.

The structured forms play host to climbing vines as nature, little by little takes back its rightful place within the walls. Simple lines, raw materials and concrete were the keywords for the design team, wishing to preserve and revel in the elementary character of the place.

A raw site in a dialogue between seemingly opposing elements, the hard-edged space is tamed by a muffled decor, dressed in warm fabrics and soft light. The concrete light-well ceiling of the agora responds in particular to the textured volcanic stone lamps and the grid of imposing windows of the large hall.

Reflecting Parisian artistic life, Forest is structured around four spaces — the terrace, the entrance, the agora and the large hall. Different but complementary, the rooms and their atmospheres change during the day as the museum’s doors open and close, making Forest both the restaurant of the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and, in the evening, taking on a life of its own.

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Gently transitioning from the museum, the entrance to the restaurant immediately develops its underground identity. From the concrete bar, flocking on the ceiling to the hammer and sickle stencilled in the 1930s discovered during the demolition, Forest’s architecture is always unexpected.

Uchronia applied a responsible ethos to the design, implementing the reuse of furniture and materials. Around a hundred chairs belonging to the group owning the restaurant have thus been restored and reused, as have the solid wood supports of the bar and sideboards made from northern French timber or the terrace fabrics made from recycled materials and natural fibres. The cinder blocks in the agora, the concrete beams and steel trays in the ceilings, and many other materials have also been preserved in their original state, certain examples enhanced by unique custom-made pieces.

Between creation and construction, Uchronia’s multifaceted formation of Forest is both an architectural homage to Brutalism and a reflection of the impetuous growth of nature.

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[Images courtesy of Uchronia. Photography by Alexandre Tabaste.]