Milan's Bar Bardo: NM3 Trades Steel for Rosewood and Red Velvet

Milan studio NM3 has completed Bar Bardo, a 55-square-metre cocktail and listening bar that draws — carefully, and by its own account loosely — on Adolf Loos's American Bar in Vienna, finished in 1908.

The project sits directly across from Bar Basso, one of Milan's most popular bars. Almost every element inside was custom-designed by NM3, a studio founded in 2020 whose modernist stainless steel furniture has already made it a household name in the city.

Studio co-founder Francesco Zorzi was quick to qualify the Loos comparison when he spoke to Dezeen. "The American Bar was more of an aspiration than a direct formal reference," he said.

He named a second reference, then dismissed both. "The ambition was never to recreate Loos's bar, nor Robert and Trix Haussmann's Kronenhalle in Zurich, which was another important reference for the project," Zorzi explained. "Rather, we wanted to create a truly classic bar for Milan, with a very specific spatial and architectural character."

What does the interior actually contain?

The single room, plus a bathroom, is lined with polished rosewood panels on the walls and ceiling — a material choice NM3 says adds character to the small space while improving its acoustics. Acoustics matter here: Bar Bardo is a listening bar, fitted with bright red speakers, a stainless steel DJ booth and metal shelving for vinyl records.

A stainless steel bar, the studio's signature material, stands at the centre of the room. Its surfaces reflect globular 1950s pendant lights by Italian architect Luigi Caccia Dominioni — the only vintage pieces in the bar. NM3 swapped the lamps' original chains for longer black ones.

The perimeter carries built-in red velvet banquette seating, matched with crimson curtains. At the back, the bathroom is clad floor to ceiling in bright red tiles measuring 10 by 10 centimetres, with utilitarian stainless steel used again for the toilet, sink and other fixtures, lit by pared-back sconces.

Can a bar become a club?

NM3 designed the space to be flexible. Every interior element is movable except two: the bar and the banquettes. That constraint, Zorzi argues, is enough.

"By simply removing the furniture, the cocktail bar can easily be transformed into a club," he said. "The flexibility of the space is therefore achieved through a simple architectural arrangement rather than complex spatial interventions."

The claim is plausible on the studio's own numbers — a single room, two fixed elements, everything else loose — though how easily a working service space resets night after night remains untested until the bar operates at full tilt.

A shift in direction for NM3

Bar Bardo marks a softer register for the studio. NM3 previously designed what Dezeen described as a "raw" interior for Milan's Galleria Montegani, plus a similarly metal-heavy store in the city for fashion brand Miss Sixty. Rosewood and velvet sit some distance from that output.

The studio's profile keeps rising in its home city. Ahead of Milan design week in April, NM3 was among the studios Dezeen spoke to about working as a contemporary designer in Italy's design capital. Photography of Bar Bardo is by Piercarlo Quecchia.

With Bar Bardo, NM3 has shown it can work in wood and textile as convincingly as in steel — and Milan's design-watchers will now be watching to see which version of the studio turns up next.