At karaoke bar Åke, disco meets the Tokyo night
The Åke karaoke bar is located at Uudenmaankatu 5 C in Helsinki.
THE FIRST THOUGHT of the Åke karaoke restaurant was born out of a love for the form. Its owners bring deep knowledge of nightlife, of high-end club culture, and of Tokyo’s one-of-a-kind karaoke scene.
What Helsinki had to offer, though, didn’t quite meet the demand these sharp-eyed owners sensed was out there. So they set out to create a new kind of karaoke concept, one with first-rate sound, well-made drinks, and an exclusive atmosphere. The goal was a place that breaks with convention: the main event of the evening rather than the last stop in the small hours.
The whole thing, from concept and identity to the space itself, was designed by the studio Aivan. The project was led by Aivan designers Tuula Vitie, Jessica Liman and partner Aleksi Kuokka.
The bar’s largest room is called the Velvet Lounge. The Jagger sofas are by NORR11, and the w203 Ilumina table lamp in the foreground is by Wästberg.
The bar has several disco balls. The mood of each room can be shifted with lighting.
Tom Dixon’s rechargeable Melt table lamp was designed in collaboration with the Swedish collective Front.
Designed by Pierre Paulin, the T877 coffee tables are part of GUBI’s collection.
A place that invites you to let go
The name came up in the client’s conversations early on, and according to Tuula Vitie it shaped the concept powerfully. Åke Blomqvist is remembered as a towering figure in Finnish dance instruction, the man who brought disco into Finnish living rooms in the 1970s and got a famously stiff nation bashfully moving. Disco, though, was always more than dancing. In Vitie’s words, it opened the door to an entirely new world, an aesthetic but also a freer culture.
That is the heart of Åke. You step in from the street into another reality, one where shyness can be left at the coat check. Lightly taped windows keep a thin connection to the world outside, yet the experience stays sheltered. “Guests get the feeling that no one is watching, that there’s room to let loose,” Vitie says.
The disco theme comes alive through the interplay of lighting, color, shape, and material.
Most of the karaoke restaurant’s furniture was supplied by Finnish Design Shop’s Trade & Contract Sales.
A living room far from home
Åke has a main room, the Velvet Lounge, and four private rooms available to rent. The street-level premises on Uudenmaankatu, right in the heart of Helsinki, turned out to be perfect for the concept. Its warren of spaces creates a safe, living-room feel, and the Art Nouveau details of this singular building, with their distinctive window shapes, were worked into the whole in an intriguing way.
The disco theme the client wanted was built with color, form, and material: plush volumes, muted tones, curves, velvet, and mirrored surfaces. Light is an essential element too. The tone and intensity of the lighting can be adjusted steplessly as the night demands, and the handmade, genuine neon tubes nod to the project’s other key source of inspiration, the nightlife of Tokyo.
The furniture carries a big part of the karaoke bar’s aesthetic.
Most of the furniture was delivered by Finnish Design Shop’s Trade & Contract Sales, with Laura Katva looking after the project. The undisputed show stoppers are NORR11’s Jagger sofas and Montana Furniture’s Paradigm sofas with their generous, rounded forms.
In a karaoke restaurant the technology is a huge part of the experience, yet it can’t be allowed to show. Wireless microphones and a high-grade sound system make the evening, but they and the acoustics had to be built into the space so that the whole stays beautiful. According to Aleksi Kuokka, an exceptional amount of work went into exactly that. The generous curtains, acoustic panels, rugs, and other textiles do double duty as well: they create the enveloping mood and guarantee pleasant acoustics.
The Singa Suite has a riser that puts the performer in the spotlight. The Roly Poly chair is by Driade.
Finnish Design Shop’s Trade & Contract Sales was closely involved at every stage of the project. Products were loaned to the restaurant for testing, and the team was on site for the installation.
Paavo Tynell's 9602 floor lamp is part of GUBI's collection. Photo: Vertti Luoma
Ready to grab the mic? Photo: Vertti Luoma
No need to be shy
For Aleksi Kuokka, Åke adds up to a success. “The restaurant has reached exactly the audience the owners believed was out there,” he says.
For the Aivan team, the lesson of the project was courage. “We realized that in a venue like this you can do genuinely wild things, and the response will most likely be great,” Jessica Liman says. Vitie agrees: “If we did the same project again, we wouldn’t hold back or play it safe at all.”
Shyness is conspicuously absent at the microphone, too. The sense of safety the restaurant has created means the nerves so often attached to singing simply vanish. People wait impatiently for their turn, and in the dim light the jitters turn into a game where everyone gets a moment at the center of it all.
Åke Blomqvist got Finns dancing back in the 1970s. Now the restaurant Åke has them singing.
See also:
• Finnish Design Shop Trade & Contract Sales >
Published on 14 Oct, 2026
