Warm Wood & Slow Design: MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk
Jul 11
4 min read
In a city that moves at its own speed, a new 142 Sq. Mt. (1528 Sq. Ft.) room in Minsk, Belarus, asks visitors to do something increasingly rare: stay a while. MARKS Coffee & Books is not built for the rushed transaction of a to-go cup. It is built for lingering — for opening a book, ordering a second coffee, and watching the light shift across warm timber walls.
The project arrives at a moment when cafés everywhere are quietly reinventing themselves as hybrid spaces — part reading room, part social living room, part design showcase. MARKS leans fully into that identity, weaving coffee culture and book culture together until the two feel inseparable. The result is a space that photographs beautifully, but is designed, first and foremost, to be felt.
Wood as the Room's Native Language
Walk through MARKS, and one material follows at every turn: warm, natural wood veneer. It wraps the walls, lines the shelving, shapes the benches, and clads even the doors, giving the entire footprint a single, continuous voice. Rather than feeling monotonous, the repetition creates calm — the kind of visual quiet that lets a person's shoulders drop the moment they step inside.
Crisp white surfaces are layered above the timber, keeping the interior bright and stopping it from tipping into heaviness. Underfoot, mineral-toned floor tiles by Fioranese and Coem ground the palette in something closer to stone than to typical café flooring, lending the room a quiet, architectural seriousness. Together, the combination reads less like a commercial fit-out and more like someone's very well-kept study.
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
A Library Wearing a Café's Clothes
Books are not decoration at MARKS— they are structure. Volumes from Assouline and Taschen line open shelving throughout the space, their spines and covers doing as much work as any artwork to set the room's tone: cultured, colourful, and a little indulgent. Titles on baking, design history, and photography sit side by side, turning the shelves into a browsable, ever-changing exhibition.
The floor plan mirrors this dual identity. Small two-tops tucked against the windows create private, book-friendly corners for solo reading or quiet catch-ups, while a long communal table anchors the center of the room like the reading table of a well-loved library. It is a layout that lets the same space hold a solitary afternoon and a lively group gathering, often at the very same time.
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
The Bar as Quiet Performance
At the heart of the space, the coffee counter is engineered to disappear into the architecture rather than dominate it. Built around a Modbar system, the espresso machinery sits recessed beneath the countertop, leaving only clean, sculptural taps rising from the stone-toned surface. The effect turns the ordinary choreography of coffee-making — grinding, pulling, steaming — into something closer to a quiet performance, visible but never cluttered.
It is a small technical choice with an outsized emotional payoff. Without a bulky machine breaking up the sightline, the counter reads as an extension of the wood-and-stone material story rather than an interruption of it. Guests can watch their coffee being made without ever feeling like they are standing in a commercial kitchen.
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
A Playful Wink Overhead
Against all this restraint, one element is allowed to be purely joyful: the wall lighting. Clusters of IKEA's VARMBLIXT lamps, designed by Sabine Marcelis, punctuate the walls in soft, donut-shaped forms — sometimes alone, sometimes stacked in twos and threes, and in one striking moment, arranged in a grid of eight above the central table. Their rounded, almost pillowy silhouette brings a note of playful sculpture into an otherwise serious material palette.
The lamps do double duty as art and as wayfinding, marking key walls and nooks throughout the café much like a gallery piece might. Their soft, frosted glow likely turns the timber walls golden as the day fades, adding warmth exactly where a café needs it most: at eye level, right where people gather.
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
Furniture With a Human Touch
Throughout the café, wooden chairs by Delo Design add the final layer of warmth. Their bentwood curves and honest, exposed joinery echo the same material honesty found in the walls and shelving, so that even the seating feels like part of the architecture rather than an afterthought. Nothing about the furniture tries too hard — it simply supports the room's larger, quieter ambition.
More than a café, MARKS Coffee & Books reads as a small argument for slowness — for the pleasure of a good book, a well-made coffee, and a room considerate enough to let both breathe. In a city where 142 Sq. Mt. might easily have become just another commercial space; Anna Lazar has instead built somewhere with real rhythm: warm, calm, and quietly memorable. It is, in the end, a place designed not simply to be visited, but to be returned to.
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
MARKS Coffee & Books in Minsk. Image courtesy of Vitalina Voroshkevich
Anna Lazar runs her design studio out of Minsk, Belarus, working across private homes, public interiors, and original object and lighting design. She trained at the International School of Design, and her portfolio reflects a steady commitment to pairing aesthetic polish with everyday function — an approach that has earned her recognition within the design community and features across international design media.
Her guiding philosophy is simple: interiors should do more than look good. As she puts it, the aim is always "spaces that inspire, comfort, and elevate everyday living." MARKS Coffee & Books is a clear expression of that instinct — a commercial space treated with the same warmth, restraint, and material honesty she brings to a private residence.
