Fujiyama

After a long break I’m back with some new photos I took during the course of this ongoing pandemic. I hope you all are doing well so far. Let’s hope we’re getting through all of this soon. The order of these photos is not chronological anymore, I just start with those images that start to tell a little story almost by themselves.

1/38, f/1.6, ISO 640, 26 mm, iPhone 12 Pro Max

First I want you to have a look at this wonderful landscape of parametrically shaped rips, made from felt and plywood. Actually it’s the ceiling of a new restaurant that opened in Nuremberg right at the time when already having to deal with all the obstacles of current restrictions because of covid. The restaurant is organized as one big open plan, there are no walls or doors, it’s just one big open room. Yet the room is nicely divided into several cozy spaces by carefully detailed dividers. You are going to enter the restaurant right in the center of the room from a small, dark niche which makes the adjacent restaurant feel even bigger and even more spacious.

The rips don’t just cover the ceiling, they also fold and bend, become columns and seats, form corridors and counters. The felt lamellas are made from up-cycled PET bottles. They are used to control the intimate soundscape of the Japanese sushi restaurant Fujiyama, a beautiful new location in Nuremberg situated right within the older structure of the Adina Hotel. The refurbishment already happened in 2020 and was lead by the local architecture firm bermüller + niemeyer also situated in Nuremberg. The project was honored with several awards, among them the award for the most beautiful restaurant in Germany in 2021.

For me the most wonderful part of the whole restaurant is the rather small and narrow corridor close to the restrooms. Here you can get the idea of being completely immersed by all of these beautifully shaped wooden lamellas surrounding you in all three dimensions. Also the LED lighting in form of very slim stripes is especially appealing here. The rips span across the whole room diagonally in a consistent angle of 45 degrees. The transition between the different materials which are felt on the one hand and wood on the other is completely fluent as if the different molecules would melt into each other and form a completely new substance.

But what would a restaurant be without the food? So just let me say here that the food is indeed very delicious and also for those of you who are not into sushi the menu offers plenty of other options. So don’t hesitate to give this little new gem a try when you are planning your next visit to the famous Christkindlesmarkt around Christmas time. Next year.