PROJECT TITLE: Lit Athens

CATEGORY: interior design and branding

LOCATION: Thiseiou 15, Athens, Greece

AREA:  178 m² 

PROJECT STATUS: completed, April 2022

LEAD DESIGNER: Miltos Kontogiannis

PROJECT MANAGER: Serafeim Pappas

DESIGN TEAM: Margarita Voyatzi

PHOTOGRAPHY: Alina Lefa

TEXT: Ioannis Argiris

Lit Athens

Lit Athens is a modern all day café bar in Thiseio – the heart of Athens. Studiomateriality team draws inspiration from the intense urban scenery of the centre, creating a much smaller scale ‘city’. A tour within the café – bar resembles to a walk around the alleys of Athens: graffiti slogans on the walls, air condition units, pots filled with basil and a bunch of antennas, are some of the elements that the studio combines unexpectedly with an 80s aesthetic in order to liven up the space. A strong element in a space that’s dominated by gray, is the enormous thunder in the center of the atrium – in the morning it’s implying an evening promise, while at night it’s electrifying the atmosphere. In combination with the distinctive lightboxes and the rest of the neon lighting system, they function as a well-tuned orchestra, in which the bright splash of colors in the different corners of the bar also participate. A classic figure, the one of Caryatid, stands out from all the other street elements, and is carefully placed in key points of the space such as the facade and the bar, completing the image of today’s Athens.

Explosive like a thunder, this place landed in the city – and it’s lit.