Swiss Architect Leopold Banchini Crafts Entire London Pub Interior From One Oak Tree.

In London’s De Beauvoir Town, Swiss architect Leopold Banchini-designed Goodbye Horses is a neighbourhood pub that gets cultural mixing absolutely right. Working with carpenter DiSe, he’s created a space that feels both unapologetically local and refreshingly global.

Here’s the kicker: almost everything you see inside comes from one massive oak tree. The ten-metre bar sits lower than usual, working as counter, prep space, and dining table all at once. Every piece of custom furniture shares the same origin story—that century-old oak, used down to its bark and natural cracks.

But this isn’t just about being sustainable (though it absolutely is). Banchini has mixed materials from everywhere—Japanese hemp paper, hand-cast Italian glass, volcanic stone, oxidised brass—creating what he calls a meeting between “Italian grotesque and Japanese wabi-sabi” in an English setting. It sounds complex, but it works beautifully.

The building itself gets the full traditional treatment. Original brick walls wear limewash and old-school roughcast, while the ceiling sports hand-textured lime plaster. The real talking point is that beaten earth floor made from soil, straw, and clay with linseed oil coating—exactly how early countryside pubs did it centuries ago. Smart move using reclaimed Yorkshire stone for the high-traffic bits and garden areas.

What Dreams are Made of: Film Noir Studio in Geneva by Leopold Banchini Architects & Giona Bierens de Haan.

Leopold Banchini and Giona Bierens de Haan looked to the era-defining film noir genre to create an inspired take on a post-production studio in Geneva.

Artist Lucy Stein painted massive hessian curtains that steal the show. Drawing from British folklore and mythology, they filter light like stained glass windows once did. Her contemporary take on ancient stories might be the project’s smartest move, bridging old and new without trying too hard.

All this connects to bigger conversations about craft movements, especially the links between Japan’s Mingei folk art and England’s Arts and Crafts movement. Both emerged during rapid industrialisation, but Banchini translates these historical chats into something that makes sense today.

What makes Goodbye Horses work is how it handles cultural references without getting precious about them. It’s a pub that knows its history but isn’t stuck in the past. The materials tell stories—about local craft traditions, global connections, and what happens when you take time to do things properly.

House of Architectural Heritage in Muharraq, Bahrai by Leopold Banchini Architects.

This exhibition space in Bahrain encourages public interaction and participation through design, featuring two main facades which completely open up to the street.

[Images courtesy of Leopold Banchini. Photography by Rory Gardiner.]