Bucharest under umbrellas

On a tiny street in Bucharest, a historical tiny street named Polona, there you will find a piece of colorful heaven.

How to find creative design in Bucharest: Wolkwagen T2 busbar

If you take a walk on the street, you will see in the courtyard a Wolkswagen bus from 60’s “dressed” like a creative bar. The busbar had been illustrated by Kitra, an illustrator in Bucharest (here you may see the process).

The busbar is the entrance in heaven. After you walk in you may find hundreds of umbrellas in the sky and the most lovely atmosphere in the entire Bucharest: Acuarela – Bistro for arts.

Acuarela – creative community in Bucharest

Acuarela is a small bistro for the creative community in Bucharest, an art gallery endorser, jazz promoter, social hub and the main financial tool for Imbold Cultural Foundation. In Romanian, “acuarela” means watercolor and you will find on tables watercolors and paintbrushes to paint, it’s like a therapy, a return journey in childhood.

Here you can meet your friends and enjoy a coffee with the most creative people in town, there are always familiar faces to stay with for a drink or for a jazz concert in the evening.

Special design for a bistro

The concept was developed by two Bucharestian brothers: an art director and an illustrator. They are clustering creativity day by day with a touch of jazz, a smell of coffee and monthly vernissages. They created together also a brand engagement agency Hello Menthol and have planned the design of Acuarela with a group of great friends and artists. The concept came from a colorful mix of refurbished objects, beloved pieces of the past and artworks collected over the past five years.

The design is full of personal objects from their family archive such as tables from their childhood, the picture of their grand grand father, some tapestries made by their grandmother, paintings made by one of the brothers; Antique suitcases with the travellers’ name on it, inter-war lamps, posters from the communist period, tea kettle, glasses, books from their grandparents’ library, all together create in a positive way the interior of Acuarela. The garden has lots of colorful umbrellas, sofas painted by artists within an exhibition of painted furniture organized by the brothers on National Night of Galleries. Also, they organized an event “Friendly painting” to empower their friends to paint the chairs for the terrace.

All the design make the place a cozy open living room with fresh air where friends are reunited to enjoy life while drinking a perfect lemonade. The place has become an unconventional museum, the interior has many communists objects that recreate an optimistic image from that period. The place is inserted in all alternative guided tours of Bucharest and is being visited by the tourists.

Another nice thing at Acuarela is the team starting with the family of owners and ending with waiters and bartenders; they are always happy and positive and make all the joy together, as you may see here.

Acuarela – cultural hub of Bucharest

Besides their special design, the Bucharestian brothers brought to Acuarela many cultural events that created a flow among bistros and gardens of Bucharest. Acuarela is the main financial tool for the Imbold Cultural Foundation and contributes to organize jazz concerts, theatre plays, interactive speeches, art exhibitions, book fairs, creative workshops, live drawing with contemporary artists. Here you can see some of their events in their first year of activity.

Every year, they are organizing Gradinesco – jazz and theatre festival, five days festival in the garden with contemporary musicians and actors in Bucharest. Here you may see the first edition.

Another well known and successful event is Bucharest Optimixed, a mix between visual art, photography and music. Photos of Bucharest, remixed through illustration and music, created a different image of Bucharest with characters and colors.

Last year, they had an audio-video experiment in the garden. They had enlighten the umbrellas and put the music on within a DJ (inside of the festival Electronic Beats).

If you visit Bucharest, you will love sitting under colorful umbrellas and drinking watermelon lemonade or Summer Yummer Cocktail.