Wingårdhs slides glass restaurant under Foster + Partners-designed bridge

Swedish studio Wingårdhs has unveiled Slussporten, a glass-fronted restaurant located underneath Stockholm's Goldbridge that was designed to challenge the idea that "nothing good happens under a bridge".

Slussporten, which is run by Stockholm hospitality brand Nobis, is located under a bridge designed by British studio Foster + Partners as part of its masterplan for the city's Slussen area.

Named Slussbron, but known as Guldbron – the Goldbridge in Swedish – because of its golden hue, the bridge connects Stockholm's Old Town with the hip Södermalm area.

Wingårdhs looked to ideas of "mass and transparency" when designing Slussporten, a self-supporting glass structure that sits underneath the bridge, overlooking the water.

Architects Gert Wingårdh and Maria Normann described the 855-square-metre restaurant as "a glass room beneath a concrete bridge, structurally independent, solidity and fragility."

Its building and infrastructure are independent from Slussbron, but the location was still a dominant factor in the restaurant's design.

"The bridge dominates — that was given from the start," Wingårdh and Normann told Dezeen. "Our volumes are part of its public space, not a challenge to it."

"The silhouette is the bridge's," they continued. "The transparency is ours. You pass these facades on bicycle, by boat, by metro — always in the shadow of Guldbron."

For this reason, the architects chose to work with glass, creating an open design that faces the Vattentorget square. The studio also hoped to challenge traditional views of bridge underpasses as scary places.

"Nothing good happens under a bridge — darkness, insecurity, no man's land," the architects said. "That's the assumption we set out to change."

To do so, Wingårdh and Normann used "super-transparent glass" to create "maximum light, a place to meet."

The only points of connection between the restaurant and the bridge are at the bridge foundations, where Wingårdhs used dark sheet metal to also visually connect the two buildings.

"The foundations govern; the building elements that meet them are recessed and clad in black sheet metal, stepping back to create shadow and let the foundations read clearly," Wingårdh and Normann explained.

"The upper section of the glass facade has a dark-tinted band, both to create a visual boundary against the bridge and to conceal the roof structure behind it."

Inside, the space has been divided into three sections – the Gold Bar, the Food Bar and the Dining Room. Here, interior architects Helena Toresson and Sara Helder aimed to create a "warm and welcoming" space.

The designers worked with a variety of different materials for the interior, which also reflects – sometimes literally – Slussporten's location by the water. Its main bar has a striking, beaten-metal design that resembles the waves outside the door.

"The bar is clad in a patterned metal with a water-like rhythm: warmth, reflection and gold — gilded, like Guldbron above, with shifting reflections across the space," Toresson and Helder said.

It also drew on the graffiti commonly found on and under bridges when creating the restaurant space.

"Running the full length of the bar and restaurant, the inner wall is clad floor-to-ceiling in Italian glass mosaic – an abstract collage of enlarged onion motifs," the interior architects said.

"Inspired by the graffiti that typically adorns bridge foundations and walls, we ornamented ours with patterned mosaic."

Slussporten also features tile-clad central pillars, while the ceiling was designed to match the colour of the bridge.

"The tone of the acoustic plaster ceiling was carefully calibrated to match the hue of the bridge – seen from Vattentorget, the two read as one surface," Toresson and Helder concluded.

The Slussen area is also set to feature a Nobel Center with a red-brick design by David Chipperfield. Wingårdhs has previously turned a dilapidated freight depot into a Malmö food market and perched forest hotel suites on stilts.

The photography is courtesy of Wingårdhs.

Project credits:

Interior architect: Wingårdhs
Team: Helena Toresson, Sara Helder, Felica Warberg, Christoffer Gleeson, Karin Johansson
Architect: Wingårdhs
Team: Gert Wingårdh, Maria Normann, Maria Olausson, Jacek Zalecki
Masterplan: Foster + Partners, New Slussen Masterplan
Lighting design: Abreu via Joaquim Abreu
Developer: Nobis Hospitality Group
Client contact: Maximilian Catenacci, Vice CEO Nobis Restaurant Division
Contractor: Tenet, RIHAB (tenant fit-out)
Interior supplier: YLLW AB via Mats Flodin

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