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Italy’s Veneto is an agro-industrial hotbed. Small cities that dot otherwise broad swaths of farmland play host to a variety of manufacturing companies, from tanneries and mills to foundries and glassworks.

One such town, Arzignano, 11 miles west of Vicenza, has become something of a design laboratory for Italian studio AMAA, cofounded in 2012 by former classmates Marcello Galiotto and Alessandra Rampazzo. Here, the duo realized the Atipografia art gallery, retrofitted a warehouse as their own office, and built a smattering of residential projects (with many more in construction), all within close proximity. But the 25,000-person city is more than merely an architectural playground—Galiotto shares a personal connection with Arzignano. It is where he grew up.

“One of my dreams was to do something meaningful here,” he says. “I enjoy designing fancy houses, but those don’t really change the culture of a place.” AMAA’s latest project—a joint financial venture among Galiotto, a restaurateur, and an investor—aims to give back to the community.

As he and I walk down hushed side streets toward Piazza Libertà, the town’s main square, the clatter of tableware and conversation begin to fill the air. There is no signage that announces Caffè Nazionale, but the many sated diners outside certainly suggest its presence. The restaurant is tucked into the ground floor of the porticoed 19th-century Palazzo Comunale, behind a single unpretentious steel door embellished with an oversize gemlike handle, created by the artist Alessandro Neretti. Cut from a slab of Serpentino Verde, a deep-green marble from nearby Valmalenco, the fixture is unwieldy, requiring of curious visitors a deliberate, if wary, push.

Caffè Nazionale (top or page) is tucked into the ground floor of Arzignano’s porticoed Palazzo Comunale (above). Photo © Mikael Olsson, click to enlarge.

For those who commit, the decision does not go unrewarded. Inside, to the left, lies a café bar and an open kitchen, where Michelin-starred chef Stefano Vio plates dishes; to the right, through an aedicular portal, is a lively dining room divided in half by a long, banquette-like bench surrounded by tables. Custom okumè-wood interventions, which recall Donald Judd’s plywood furniture, pair with a miscellany of chairs from Galiotto’s personal collection of curvier Bertoia, Thonet, and Eames designs. Leather cushions are held down with straps and stainless-steel ratchet clamps, like those one might see on a farm or jobsite. Crisp polished metals couple with rough walls of opera mista, a makeshift construction technique that mixes stone rubble, bricks, and concrete. This study in contrasts is the setting for an affordable and international menu that pays homage to cicchetti—small dishes typical of Venice.

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A steel door with a marble knob (1) leads to a café bar (2). Photos © Mikael Olsson

While transforming the space, which had previously been home to a dated coffee shop and administrative offices for the town, the architects discovered patches of mosaic floor hidden under wood-look ceramic flooring, and unearthed wall frescoes from beneath a coat of brittle cement. “We decided to leave everything and instead dedicated two months to extensive cleaning,” Galiotto says, somewhat nonchalantly. Of course, in a situation such as this, knowing what to preserve and what to scrap is just as much an art as designing anew, and AMAA seems to have found a delicate balance between the raw and the refined.

Some design moves were more extensive. To adjust the proportions of the dining room, AMAA took advantage of an already demolished mezzanine level and placed a steel-framed wall, which ties into new beams overhead, close to where a masonry one had once been. The beams, in turn, support a suspended coffered ceiling, with integrated speakers and lighting, which dampens reverberation and unites a space that bears the scars of many years of renovation.

The pleated steel that clads this added wall confers a note of fitting industrial flare. In some areas, AMAA replaced solid sheets with a microperforated kind, creating a trio of diaphanous scrims that mirror the geometry of the portico-facing windows. Behind two of these, in shallow niches, scarlet posters by German artist Stefan Marx have been casually wheat-pasted in the manner of urban advertisements, wrinkles and all—one reads join a band, the other leave a band. Between them, the central scrim (in fact a large swivel door, operated by a simple fabric loop) leads to a washroom that overlooks a once-covered courtyard, now open and recently planted with a matrix of birch trees. Here, in the lavatory, spackled gypsum walls, still marked by the contractors’ penciled measurements and with exposed corner beads, constitute something of a contemporary opera mista.

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Clad in pleated steel, a new wall (3) features a large swivel door (4 & 5) that leads to a spackled washroom (6). Photos © Mikael Olsson

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With so many idiosyncratic details to feast upon, patrons probably won’t notice the dining room’s urban qualities, as a sensitive extension of the piazza, until taking a seat. The space’s central archway forms an axis with a long pedestrian street that extends farther south and terminates at a historic train station. Dark casements around the windows help emphasize the profiles of the original pilasters’ plinths and bases, designed by 19th-century architect Antonio Caregaro Negrin. Galiotto hopes that Caffè Nazionale will not only become a local staple, but that its full-day hours (many Italian kitchens close midday) will also make the eatery a suitable location for business owners, gallerists, and even architects to entertain in.

The main dining room looks out onto the piazza. Photo © Mikael Olsson

Quite intentionally, AMAA’s design is not set in stone, either. Galiotto explains how the veiled niches, much like the rest of Caffè Nazionale’s interior, are intended to slowly accrue layers and layers of history. New artworks will be commissioned each year, wheat-pasted directly atop the last. I ask, “Will the next piece also be by a punk artist?” “It can be anything,” he replies, buzzing with possibility.

Click drawings to enlarge