taubenkobel brings VOGELFREI culinary pop-up to vienna through botanical and light art

VOGELFREI lands in Vienna for its tenth year

VOGELFREI is a seasonal pop-up restaurant and spatial installation by Taubenkobel, unfolding this winter inside Atelier Augarten in Vienna as a temporary convergence of art and cuisine. Each year, the team behind the two-Michelin-star restaurant relocates its kitchen and collaborators from rural Burgenland to the city, occupying sites that sit outside Vienna’s usual cultural circuits and reshaping them through food and atmosphere.

For this edition, the choice of Atelier Augarten brings the project into a former studio building set within the parkland of the Augarten. The setting offers a restrained architectural envelope with generous volume and daylight, allowing the intervention to unfold through material presence rather than overt scenography. The project reads as a carefully composed occupation of space, where dining becomes one layer within a broader spatial experience.

VOGELFREI, image courtesy Taubenkobel

vogelfrei: Taubenkobel’s traveling culinary experience

Taubenkobel’s annual VOGELFREI pop-up sees the dismantling of a working kitchen and the transportation of an entire team to create a productive tension between permanence and impermanence. In Vienna, this tension shapes how spaces are read and used over the course of an evening, as guests move through zones defined by light and texture.

VOGELFREI carries a title that translates loosely as ‘outlaw’ or ‘free as a bird,’ and the name signals a willingness to step outside fixed frameworks. Inside Atelier Augarten, this freedom appears through a spatial looseness. Circulation remains intuitive, with long sightlines across the room and a gradual shift from brightness at entry toward a more enclosed dining atmosphere as the evening progresses.

light installation by Lucy Dreams, image courtesy Taubenkobel

the sculptural botanical installations

One of the defining elements of this year’s VOGELFREI is the botanical installation by Botanical Vandalism. The work occupies the space with an assertive physical presence, using plant material to redraw boundaries and alter scale. Arrangements extend vertically and horizontally, creating moments of compression and release as guests navigate the room.

The installation resists decorative reading. Branches, leaves, and stems appear suspended, clustered, or gently cascading, interacting with air currents and light. The vegetation introduces scent and softness without sentimentality, allowing organic matter to sit alongside concrete and steel in a balanced dialogue. Over the course of an evening, the plants shift subtly, reinforcing the sense of a living environment shaped by time and use.

botanical installation by Botanical Vandalism, image courtesy Taubenkobel

interiors animated with swirling artworks

The interiors of Atelier Augarten lend a canvas that’s both neutral and characterful. Concrete surfaces and tall ceilings establish a calm backdrop for the intervention. Tables sit within the volume without excessive partitioning, and preserve the sense of a shared room rather than a series of discrete chambers.

Lighting plays a central role in shaping perception. The installation by Lucy Dreams introduces a shifting luminous field that responds subtly to sound and movement. Light washes across surfaces rather than focusing attention on single points, producing a slow modulation of tone throughout the meal. The accompanying musical concept avoids dominance, functioning instead as an atmospheric layer that reinforces the spatial continuity of the room.

Artist Hans Weigand contributes works throughout Taubenkobel’s VOGELFREI pop-up. His presence reinforces Taubenkobel’s long-standing interest in placing contemporary art within everyday settings, where works are encountered through proximity rather than ceremony.

artwork by Hans Weigand, image courtesy Taubenkobel