An
always changing bar
É
Pra Poncha
is one of the newest bars in Oporto's famous central area of
Galeria Paris, a
trendy nightlife
hotspot in this northern portuguese city. Occupying a long and narrow
ground floor of an old building, its inner space is an imaginative
recreation of a multi-colored cavern, an eye-catching result of the
fresh design by young portuguese architect Antonio Fernandez.
The
space, ceiling and part of its side walls, were outfitted with
consecutive layers of lacquered MDF emulating stalactites formations.
This design strategy allowed Fernandez to freely manipulate and shape
the different programmatic spaces of the bar, creating voids and
several functional chambers, like “the clean pantry, the dirty
pantry, toilets and storage room”, enumerates the architect.
But
besides its formal appearance, one of the most important aspects of a
bar must be its overall ambience and inviting atmosphere. In order to
create different auras over the course of an evening, a series of LED
lights were strategically installed in between the MDF panels. Those
lights can slowly shift from bloody red to icy blue, grabbing the
attention of as many visitors as possible.
Although
the curious name of the bar – an homage to the
drink Poncha from the Madeira island,
a
sweet mix of a sugar-cane brandy, honey and lemon juice – is
not connected with its formal materialization, either in aspects of
form/shape or light/color, the idea of creating a differential and
atypical bar appearance was significant since the beginning. The
number of bars in this area grew rapidly over the last couple of
years, so the challenge of creating something different is still on
the rise, even if the available budgets are considerably diminishing.
