Maison Bardot is a new gallery on Antiparos, Greece, that combines traditional Greek materials and decor with some of the most iconic midcentury furniture and objects.
Antiparos, one of the smaller islands in the Cyclades, is reachable only by a ferry boat affectionately dubbed “the flip-flop” by locals. Its shape reflects the island’s flat, arid terrain, which has a more low-key, less showy charm than Greece’s more famous holiday spots. Nevertheless, those in the know flock here: the Obamas and assorted Hollywood stars have followed the old-school Greek shipping families for whom it’s a favourite vacation retreat. What draws them? Well, Antiparos has a vibrant and varied culture. Antiquity, a bohemian 1970s spirit and modern Greece all collide here.
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It’s in one of Antiparos’ more notable buildings – a 17th-century shipbuilder’s house – that the island has staged its latest star attraction. Bardot, opened last year, is part cocktail bar, part tapas restaurant, offering a modern take on classic recipes. It’s the brainchild of restaurateurs Thanasis Panourgias and Harry Spyrou, in collaboration with New York design studio Manhattan Projects (MPNYC), aka Andreas Kostopoulos and James McNally. And yes, they did christen it after the French movie icon. “The name evokes sex, style and summer, all wrapped up in a kind of enigmatic, timeless mystique,” says Kostopoulos.
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Bardot’s distinctive rustic-modern architecture – it has a hay, clay and limestone-stucco façade, a series of grotto-like rooms with ridged, whitewashed walls, and terracotta tiles that unfurl across floors and morph into platforms, banquettes and planters – has proved so popular with both locals and visitors that it has now expanded, with the opening of Maison Bardot, a new gallery space, across the street. “Bardot was a huge hit, so when the ice cream vendor opposite went out of business, Thanasis immediately took an interest,” explains Kostopoulos. “It had always been horribly lit at night and cast a harsh glow on Bardot and the entire street – like a neon billboard in Times Square. We thought we could create something new and tasteful that drew on both the design ethos of Bardot and the low-key sophistication of Antiparos. So, the idea of a gallery space that merges Greekness and international artistry was born.”
At first, the quartet had no idea what their gallery would show, but they wanted it to be adaptable. “Our idea was to create a classic white box gallery ‘gone native’,” says Kostopoulos. “It had to support creative collaborations of all types, which meant having a flexible space that could theoretically display anything.” About half way through the project, they decided that Athens gallery Antiqua, which specialises in classic 20th-century design by the likes of Ettore Sottsass, Bruno Matthson and Afra and Tobia Scarpa, would be a perfect fit for its inaugural exhibition. “We had handpicked all the antiques for Bardot, from the vintage fridge to the Greek objects that we mixed with 1960s Spanish walnut stools and German lamps from the 1970s,” says Kostopoulos. “All this exchange across cultures and eras inspired us to show [Antiqua owner] Yagos Kounelis’ beautiful collection of midcentury furniture and objects.”
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The originally uninspiring shop the team inherited – Kostopoulos describes it as being part of “a 1990s apartment block that only a landlord could love” – is now transformed with stucco walls that curve subtly to subvert the “white cube” concept, their ridged texture achieved using an ancient technique which involves dragging a spoon-like tool across wet plaster. The floors are made of the same terracotta clay as the restaurant’s, and infused with miltos, a red earth pigment revered by the ancient Greeks. A large lightbox washes the space in diffused light, and more tiled plinths and screens act as backdrops for display. “Yagos seemed to enjoy playing with the 3D jigsaw puzzle we created,” Kostopoulos enthuses. “He rose to the challenge beautifully.”
Outside, the designers updated the façade simply with more ridged stucco, its abstract lines reminding them of minimalist painter Robert Ryman’s textured canvases. “The owners are already planning to enliven the area with outdoor seating,” adds Kostopoulos. “We imagine Bardot and Maison Bardot as a kind of civic intersection – people will be able to dip into the gallery, grab a drink, and relax in the street. We hope to convince the landlord to open up the wild garden behind Maison Bardot. It could become a kind of sculpture park – an untamed green space in a place where few such resources exist.” Antiqua at Maison Bardot runs until late September; @bardot.antiparos
