"This volume forms a convincing starting point, in which the Viennese
café is revealed as a key site of fin-de-siècle modernity and of several
modern urban identities. One cannot but hope for a sequel - that is, an
even more extensive volume but one that is just as carefully prepared
with beautiful illustrations and very extensive footnotes." -
Academia.edu
All in all, this work contains fascinating essays that indeed flesh out
some of the intricate issues of literary life that lie behind a simple
cup of coffee. The café was a place of refuge for many artists and
writers; in addition, it acted as an active, lively, and, at times,
boisterous place for political and social debate... For any course on
fin-de-siècle Central Europe, this book will provide a necessary
springboard into how and why intellectuals were so heavily invested in
the modern times of the new century." - Journal of Austrian Studies
The Viennese café was a key site of urban modernity around 1900. In the
rapidly growing city it functioned simultaneously as home and workplace,
affording opportunities for both leisure and intellectual exchange. This
volume explores the nature and function of the coffeehouse in the
social, cultural and political world of fin-de-siècle Vienna. Just as
the café served as a creative meeting place within the city, so this
volume initiates conversations between different disciplines focusing on
Vienna 1900. Contributions are drawn from the fields of social and
cultural history, literary studies, Jewish studies and art, and
architectural and design history. A fresh perspective is also provided
by a selection of comparative articles exploring coffeehouse culture
elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
Charlotte Ashby is a Lecturer in Art and Design History at Birkbeck,
University of London and the Courtauld Institute of Art. She was
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Viennese Café Project at the Royal
College of Art. In 2008 she curated the exhibition Vienna Café 1900 at
the Royal College of Art and co-convened the conference The Viennese
Café as an Urban Site of Cultural Exchange.
Tag Gronberg is Tutor for Postgraduate Research in the Department of
History of Art and Screen Media at Birkbeck, University of London. She
was a member of the curatorial team for the exhibition Modernism:
Designing a New World 1914-1939 (2006). She is the author of Vienna -
City of Modernity, 1890-1914 (Peter Lang 2007) and Designs on
Modernity: Exhibiting the City in 1920s Paris (Manchester University
Press 1998).
Simon Shaw-Miller is Professor in the History of Art at the University
of Bristol. He is an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music,
London. His publications include: Visible Deeds of Music: Music and Art
from Wagner to Cage (Yale University Press 2002), Samuel Palmer
Revisited (co-edited, Ashgate 2010) and Eye hEar: The Visual in Music
(Ashgate 2013). He won the Prix Ars Electronica Media.Arts: Research
Award in 2009.
