Bach Bar

For one generation in particular, events are often judged by the quality of the bar, the personality of the bar staff, and the atmosphere conjured by the unique art of bar design.

The Bach Bar at the Piano Mill changes each year, transformed by a revolving team of architects, engineers, and designers into a unique and enchanting experience to enjoy in tandem with the Easter events.

Bach Bar 2021

Chris Wardle, Chris Ward, Yolande Vorster, Callum Senjov, Tamarind Taylor, Jasper Wolfe, Zoe Wolfe, Kym Ward, Juliana Kim

The 2021 Bach Bar is a temporal space that interrogates the association of intimacy and memory in the physical realm. In the wake of 2020 this installation explores the dichotomy between the desire for physical gathering and the need for physical distancing.

The bar was created by curating a collection of found objects, chosen for their historical tendency to be foci for gathering: a family piano, bar stools, a circular table, a ledge, a fireplace. To emphasise their special character the objects were painted a deep Royal Blue; referencing the chromatic fascination of the recently-discovered resident Bowerbirds.

Sweeping planes of pink tape are woven into the existing built fabric, establishing physical connections between the Blue gathering objects and defining the territory of the Bar. The Pink is experienced differently from far away as a solid object glowing in the landscape, and from close by as hundreds of strips rustling in the breeze and shimmering as the dull sunlight glistens on the condensed fog clinging to the strands.

Bach Bar 2019

Andrew Campbell, Chris Ward, Nic Martoo, Nic Allen, Tamarind Taylor, Yolande Vorster

Four years since the inception of the Piano Mill and fifty years since the Apollo Mission’s successful moon touchdown, the 2019 Bach Bar installation was conceived as an articulated experience celebrating humankind’s lunar excursions and embraced the experimental and abstract conditions of the Easter at the Mill festival. The piece explores the concept of journey and the tension that exists between here, now and there. Made from a sea of 3000 vertical white fabric strips that gesture upwards, it is a celebration of space flight as punters wade through a white veil into the spherical void and inner chamber.

The texture of the fabric strips and the sound of walking on a white gravel terrain heighten the sensations of touch and hearing, while a veil masks views out of the space, generating an intimate and somewhat disorienting bar experience. The installation’s dynamic qualities of linear light and shadow reference the setting of the Harrigans Lane forest, of the trunks of tall dark gum trees dispersed amongst the familiar white fog. This transient installation is set to join its architectural compatriots in the forest as a fauna bar, its final resting place.

Bach Bar 2018

By Nic Martoo,Will Colenso, Chris Ward, Beth Philipson

The 2018 Bach Bar installation celebrated the ephemeral qualities of music and light amplified by the passage of day to night. As night falls, the practical daytime drinks bar quickly ascends to a wonderful volume of light, sound, and human activity.

The simple and striking built form extension expels sharp planes of light and sound, claiming a territory for night time gathering both inside and out of the vibrant volume. This simple fabric-clad timber stud skeleton exists as a careful composition of light and space that embraces the unbridled energy of Harrigans Lane.

As one navigates the property during the Piano Mill event, there are countless moments of discovery within the built and natural environment. The 2018 Bach Bar expanded on this idea, where what is first perceived might not be entirely clear until you cross the figurative and physical threshold of the structure's façade.

Bach Bar 2016

By Will Colenso, Jesse Hunt, Nic Martoo, Marc Treble, Jasper Wolfe

With two young architects, two aeronautical engineers, and a doctor as the designers and constructors, there were a surplus of ideas but only one day to transform the space into a vivacious watering hole.

The Bach Bar was constructed especially for the launch of the Piano Mill and was, in fact, created with materials left over from its construction. A material pallet of recycled copper, Black Japan stained timber framing, and a seemingly endless supply of seasoned plywood off-cuts provided for the bar and its suspended encasement.

The 60 year old corrugated iron walls of the original tin miners’ hut became a backdrop alive with mesmerizing animated projections and supplemented by a number of ambient lighting elements. What the bartenders lacked in hospitality experience, they made up for in style and expression.