Mystic, a fine-dining restaurant that is part of a mixed-use complex on Halifax Harbor by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, occupies a wedge-shaped building that juts from the land like an iceberg breaking the ocean’s surface. Fascinatingly, a towering 40-foot sculpture appears to pierce the roof: Ned Kahn’s Tidal Beacon, an armature clad in fluttering polycarbonate fins that light up in synchrony with the tide. A similar kinetic skin of glossy black-acrylic fins on steel cables adorns the 75-seat restaurant’s interior wall directly below the sculpture, neatly reiterating its texture and movement. DesignAgency’s decor otherwise evokes the maritime terroir of Nova Scotia. Pine-green banquettes curve around columns sheathed in the same metal that clads the exterior: Muntz, a copper-zinc alloy known for its resistance to corrosion from sea salt. Bouclé-covered chairs cozy up to walls paneled in stacked limestone, wraparound windows engender the sensation of dining directly on the water, and cove lights overhead draw attention to the plaster ceiling, molded into a curvature emulating the underside of a ship’s hull.
Interested in learning more about Interior Design’s 2025 Giants of Design? Check out our report for Top 100 Giants and Rising Giants, with more to come.
