A fluid space

Café Moulin in Minsk reimagines the contemporary café as a place for pause and contemplation. Designed by Anna Lazar, the interior avoids dramatic gestures, using architecture, light and materials to create a calm atmosphere that forms the backdrop to the everyday ritual of the coffee break. Rigid geometries are deliberately avoided throughout the interior. Arches, rounded openings, curved walls and oval mirrors replace straight lines and right angles, creating a continuous sequence of surfaces that guides the eye and softens the boundaries between spaces. The emphasis is on perception, with this sense of continuity helping to make the interior feel calm, welcoming and relaxed. The same restraint extends to the material and colour palette. Neutral tones, warm greys, milky white and tactile surfaces create a simple backdrop that shifts continually with the natural light. During the day, large windows fill the café with soft light, while in the evening artificial lighting creates a more intimate atmosphere. Pendant lights arranged along the main axis of the room do more than provide illumination: they punctuate the length of the room, while their reflections in the mirrors enhance its apparent depth. Against this restrained backdrop, the flooring takes on a defining role.

The ceramic surface is more than simply a finish, giving the interior texture and visual depth. Its marble veining contrasts subtly with the plastered surfaces and metal details of the counter and furnishings, adding definition without becoming overly decorative. The bathroom continues the same design language, using a graphic pattern to reinterpret the café’s geometry. The same ceramic slabs were also used by a local manufacturer to create the bespoke washbasin.

Anna Lazar selected Ceramica Fioranese’s Sound of Marbles, a marble-effect porcelain stoneware collection developed in collaboration with creative collective Neropaco. The collection offers a contemporary take on a classic material, combining marble-effect surfaces with geometric decorations created by intersecting lines, diagonals and curves. Rather than imitating natural stone, it reinterprets its character to create surfaces suited to contemporary architecture and pared-back interiors. The collection includes numerous formats, finishes and colours, together with a family of decorative designs offering considerable freedom in the composition of floors and walls.

At Café Moulin, Verde Intenso was chosen for the main floor in the 74×148 cm format, with a polished surface and rectified edges. The deep green veining contrasts with the otherwise neutral palette, visually anchoring the interior without disrupting its continuity. In the bathroom, FioMood Verde, again in the 74×148 cm format, translates the collection’s colour palette into a bold geometric composition that continues onto the bespoke washbasin.