Giger Bar

The passing of H.R. Giger on May 13 at the age of 74 has prompted us to think of the artist's contribution to films like Alien but also the eponymous bars he designed in his home country of Switzerland. The first, in Chur, opened in 1992, but it's the 2003 bar next to the Giger Museum in Gruyères, pictured here, that is most memorable for immersing patrons in the "biomechanical" environment dreamt up by the artist. While Giger designed the chairs, tables, flooring and just about every other surface in the bar, the arching ceiling is most striking, as if made from the spines of alien creatures.