Miami art deco meets modern design in Masquespacio’s Amiko Gelato. The Barcelona shop, which opened in April, strives to stimulate the senses and capture the essence of ice cream within its walls, creating a space that is fun and magical with curving volumes, colourful tiles, and built-in planters.

Sweets seekers enter the parlour just off a major shopping street, Passeig de Gràcia, steps from Gaudí’s Casa Batlló, beneath a pastel-striped sign. To the left of the door, a counter trimmed and topped with wood and clad in lilac and dark-green tiles runs between glass cases displaying all the delicious flavours. A strip of warm-orange tiles runs horizontally along the pale-purple wall, a consistent hue throughout, abutting a long shelf. Over the counter, a brown overhang holds half-recessed globe lights. Above the overhang, flutes of purple stack atop one another, followed by a strip of tiles and a second brown panel, for an effect reminiscent of an ice cream sandwich.

Compact seating hugs the right side of the entrance and continues into the back. Circling the rest of the shop, a pink stripe of tiles joins the orange one, both lined with dark-brown piping, and just above it, pale-pink rounded shelves hold illuminated globes, a modern interpretation of ice cream as lighting fixtures. Tiled banquettes in pink or green make up most of the seating. In some places, tabletops protrude from the bench bases on metal arms, for example along the stepped seating, a clever way to make the most of the 1,100-square-foot space. Contemporary chartreuse chairs feature round bases and a curved tubular back.

A large pink circular booth with green and brown cushions and backrests accommodates a larger group. The space between the booth’s back and the wall creates a built-in planter teaming with tropical plants. Elsewhere, banquettes clad in square burgundy tiles also morph into planters with verdant palms and other vegetation, establishing the ice cream parlour as an urban oasis amid the busy area.

Spanning the entirety of the shop, the ceiling’s illuminated grid injects the space with a futuristic feel. The floors is divided into pink and purple halves that swirl together, edged with a narrow brown strip. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors along the back and over one portion of the seating maximize visual space, while purple and grey curtains conceal storage.

For the Valencia-based firm, Amiko is a study of contrast and balance—curving volumes, a nod to the Art Deco architecture and seen in the shop in the chairs, overhang, and columns, juxtapose the modernity of straight orderly lines in the tiles and ceiling grid, meant to convey the evolution of design trends. The plants bring an organic form to the industrial tile and cement floor, and the soft pink, purple, and orange pastels, taken from the Miami Art Deco movement, are balanced with darker hues, like the chocolate brown backrests and burgundy forest green tiles. By blending elements from different movements, materials, and times, Masquespacio keeps the focus of Amiko on fun, imbuing the space with a feeling of harmonious play between the elements.

Photography by Luis Beltran.

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