Imaginative bars that move us through time

The strength of a child’s imagination can transport them to fascinating worlds, where they can explore the world and its meaning from the comfort, safety and simplicity of a cardboard box or a blanket hung over two chairs. The micro-environment instantly transforms into a dark, gloomy cave giving sanctuary from roaming dinosaurs in the kitchen, a rocket ship on course to explore distant dining room planets or a magic hideaway, safe from parents and homework.

As an adult, the build-up of personal and professional pressures remain, but the hideouts we scramble to can be far less wholesome. Establishments like bars and pubs offer us an escape from the reality of our world but, for some, it can come at a cost. Our selection of bars below, however, offers fantastical transporting environments for us to get lost in, bringing with them comfort and security, without the need for overconsumption.

Descending the stairs to the Deep Bar in Dnipro City via its hidden entrance feels like submerging oneself into the hushed environment of a speakeasy, but the basement bar’s decor and design, by architects YOD Group, actually take you back much further than that. Filled with natural organic material at every labyrinthine turn, from exposed brickwork and stonework walls to recycled oak wood-lined furniture and flooring, the cave-like environment feels a sanctuary of early man.

What really brings an underground sense to the space, however, is its ceiling. With a florist situated above the bar, decorative ceiling roots ‘conceptually connect the two levels’ as the architects explain, ‘a flower cannot be without its roots, as well as anything in this world has reasons and consequences. Everything is connected, and every action has some roots.’

Looking back to a little more recent history meanwhile, the Charles Grand Brasserie Bar is inspired by the inter-war art deco period of the mid-20th century. And while this was the time of prohibition, the bar has a tone far from that of the speakeasy. Its light, bright and open floor plan instead stands up with pride and presents itself with a loud and clear voice.

‘Celebrating city elegance and art deco splendour,’ state the project architects COX Architecture and H&E Architects, ‘with interiors toasting to life lived well, bringing back the glory days of sophisticated debauchery.’ The space combines three venues which merge into one experience, with the bar a vin, ‘an intimate space with wine bottles lining the windows,’ the grand brasserie with a ‘double height volume tied together by a sculpted joinery stair, 'heroing' local craftsmanship,’ and ends the night in an exclusive basement lounge that ‘balances layers of exposed concrete with silk crafted elements.’

Looking to the past, of course, is far easier than predicting the future. Our constantly changing ideas of future environments, while often proving to be misguided, offer signs of the technology and culture evident in their era. The Sputnik Bar by Steiner Architecture takes its name from the first man-made satellite that proved it might be possible for humanity to leave our rock. And the Viennese version borrows its own interior style from the resulting space-age trend for imagining what our inevitable future lives in space would look like.

The bar’s ‘futuristic’ interior includes the clean minimalism of tightly upholstered leather seating and riveted steel surfaces. And yet, ‘it also has something of the American diner,’ explains Steiner Architecture, ‘Sputnik’s circular seating suggests sociability that feels north American, and the stainless steel bar and stools evoke burgers and milkshakes.’

An alternative futuristic vision of where interior design is headed, meanwhile, is provided by the specialist wine bar, Wine Social. To say the bar is simply dedicated to the practice of wine tasting, however, is something of an understatement, as the bar’s own understated monochrome material palette serves to remove all outside influences from the senses.

Visitors are encouraged to blind-taste a selection of five sommelier-curated wines, either in the dark of the venue’s black room, or the light of the white. ‘Feel the wine’ suggest the architects LAB404, ‘close your eyes and savour the wine itself in the same way you would focus on yourself when closing your eyes in nature.’ And its central bar is enclosed by darkened reflective surfaces at either end, expanding the cave bar in a never-ending experience.

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