Restaurant Memelis with an Office Enlargement

About object:

A renovated historic warehouse of the nineteenth century on the embankment of the river Dane with an adjacently built commercial and public building is one of the first reconstructions of the Fishermen’s quarter. The renovated building adapted to a restaurant and brewery has retained the spirit of the old warehouses of Klaipeda City.
The building is renewed reservedly with a due respect for the architectural heritage. The new glass volume is blocked to the historic building. The new building repeats the old construction by its shape, but is an inverse to the historic warehouse by its material solution. The contrast is used to emphasise and display the historic building – hereby avoiding an architectural levelling. The vitreous volume is framed and “frozen” by the interpretations of historic forms and materials “borrowed” from the old reconstructed warehouse. The façades of glass windows are surrounded by a red brick perch and finished by a gable tile roof on the top. The rear façade of the building that is oriented to Žvejų Street is crowned by a monumental red brick pediment.
This duet of the old and the new is a semantized, brave and herewith respectful combination of the historic and modern architectures.

G. Mikalauskaitė