The Coffee Bar

The coffee bar of the Brazilian Pavilion at the New York World's Fair, 1939, by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. One lamp, one cup, and it is yours. You stand at the head of a curved wooden counter in a dark hall. Under a copper lamp waits an empty white cup on a saucer, with a copper tap above it. Beside the lamp hangs an enamel sign: Fair visitors are served a cup of the fragrant beverage. Beyond the light the hall is dark: sacks of coffee stacked to the ceiling along both walls, wooden chutes above them, and far at the back a doorway framed in deep red. Click the cup, or use the button Pour a cup, and the tap fills it and steam rises. Then the lamps along the walls come on, front to back, the chutes swing open and beans pour from every one of them until the hall is a sea of coffee right up to the counter. Last, the doorway lights up, and everything is still. With reduced motion the hall starts full and lit. The doorway is the way on: it opens koffienoob.nl in this same tab. To the right of the doorway, a round copper window looks out on the evening sky over the fair, where the zeppelin hangs still with its windows lit. Click the zeppelin to go back to it, or use the link Back to the zeppelin in the top left corner of the image. Drag the image or use the arrow keys to look around.