The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is launching a new Cafe Vienna series, doling out rich coffee and miniature sandwiches in a pop-up dining space inspired by the museum's current retrospective on Austrian artist-designer Koloman Moser.
In collaboration with Decorative Center Houston, the MFAH tapped interior designer Punita Valambhia to transform the museum restaurant into a fin-de-siècle European bistro with a contemporary twist. For the next three Mondays, guests can enjoy a small lunch inside the "cafe" followed by private tours of the Moser exhibit . . . all while the building is closed to the public.
"I've tried to evoke the show by concentrating on stripes and geometric patterns, elements that define much of Moser's work," Valambhia tells CultureMap.
"We've taken the silvers and golds and cobalt blues from the show and translated them into the cafe. It's like Koloman is alive and with us today."
A pivotal figure in the proto-modernist Vienna Secession movement (Austria-Hungary's answer to Art Nouveau), Moser would join artist Gustav Klimt and architect Josef Hoffman to create the influential Wiener Werkstätte studios to produce artistically-inspired functional household goods, examples of which are on display in the MFAH exhibition.
Café Vienna will pop up on the lower level of the Beck Building on Oct. 28, Nov. 4 and Nov. 11. Tickets to the event — available on the MFAH website — are $65 each and $55 for MFAH members.
Koloman Moser, Wardrobe from the bedroom of the Eisler von Terramare Apartment, 1902–1903, execution: J. W. Müller, Vienna, maple (formerly stained grey), marquetry of different woods, mother-of-pearl and ivory inlay
Emilia's Havana offers a retro spin on the holiday bar, with the 1950s-inspired speakeasy decked out in tinsel and trees. Photo by Hasan Yousef 