Bayerischer Hof's Breakfast Room by Jouin Manku.The palatial hotel's own "hall of mirrors" the only original room to survive World War II bombing, is now a bar where the rococo molded-plaster walls and ceiling contrast with the blue neon-lit base of the freestanding bar proper.

The sixth-story breakfast room that Jouin Manku would transform into the day-to-night Dachgarten, meaning roof garden, was overdue for an overhaul. Volkhardt sought total transformation of the 2,600 square feet, essentially a banal rectangle plus a dogleg, but with a bevy of constraints. The kitchen’s location could not change, and the buffet servery had to be nearby. Large areas needed to be able to split into several smaller ones, each with its own access, for different functions: corporate events, cocktail receptions, dinners. And the aesthetic had to assume multiple personalities. 

A counterbalance to all those challenges, the big plus was the roof terrace that runs the length of the space. Replacing the terrace-facing wall with glass opened up a spectacular view of Munich’s spires and domes, the surrounding forests, and the snow-capped peaks of the Bavarian Alps in the distance.

The local custom of protecting public fountains in the winter by boarding them up translated into an abundance of wood. Paneling and some of the ceiling are American walnut, while other parts of the ceiling are wrapped in snowy-white fabric. Flooring mixes walnut planks with earthy beige or gray carpet. Around the perimeter of the dining room, alcoves are backed by walls sculpted into abstract snowdrifts. 

On the maximum-flexibility front, pocket doors can slide out to divide the long dining room in two, and sliding doors can partition off the servery. Above the latters’s two oval buffet islands hover similarly shaped hoods in polished copper. From inside them, copper-mesh sleeves pull down to transform the islands into nighttime display “lanterns” for sculpture or other art objects.

Evening is when the lounge in the dogleg beyond the servery truly comes into its own. Slender white porcelain tiles clad the front of the bar and encircle the bottom of the giant mushroom of a chimney for the double-sided fireplace. It’s ringed, in turn, by arcs of seating in caramel-colored leather. The mirrored tops of side tables rise and fall, thanks to pistons inside. Standing out from the overall palette of neutrals, a feature wall is the same pale green as the lichen growing on rocks in the Alps.