La Belle Epoque
le gastropub français in Colombo
Born in 1964 into a family of wine growers in the South of France, the twins Jacques & Laurent Pourcel have become one of the strongest ambassadors of French Gastronomy. Their cuisine resembles them; simple, modern and above all, creativity. The restaurant mainly focuses on dine-in, take away, bar and night life.
The design objectives were to create a space that secures a welcoming and homely atmosphere which is present throughout the evolution of French architectural styles. Furthermore, the design focuses on utilizing materials such as glass, steel, iron, and concrete, while maintaining the architectural elements of Beaux - Art & Modernism styles.
Some of the key elements are; preserving clean - minimal lines, open floor plans, large windows and walls of glass, arched doors, and a natural relationship with nature and the outside environment of the space.
Tradition and modernity are in ordered relation of the transition from time and space. Tradition represents the past, while the modern is developed from tradition, which means tradition is the premise and foundation of modern development, and modern development will be interrupted without tradition.
The concept is derived from the two extremes of present French Architecture, Beaux-Art & Modernism. Beaux -Art is a style which revolves around formal design, grandiosity, elaborate ornamentation, realism, classical details, symmetry etc. while modernism deals with minimal lines, open floorplans, and most importantly asymmetrical designs.
The proposed site is located in Sri Jayawardhanapura Kotte, Sri Lanka. The demography of the proposed project mainly focuses on Dine-in, take-away and delivery customers; while attracting new customers for the bar, dance floor and the wine gallery.
This new demography includes the young people who takes a part of the light life and buzzing weekends. The neighboring context is surrounded by a few restaurants of different cuisines, which gives the opportunity of attracting more and new customers.
