Cafe Capua

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Café Capua in 1010 Vienna, Johannesgasse 3, was a well-known concert café from the interwar period. It was set up in 1913 by Adolf Loos. In 1931 it was renamed Café de Paris. After 1945, it served US officers as a military casino. In 1950 a fire destroyed parts of the restaurant. Some of them continued to exist as espresso until the 1970s.

Emergence

The café was set up in 1913 by the well-known architect Adolf Loos . There was marble paneling on the walls, a Greek wall frieze below the ceiling, Thonet armchairs and marble tables. There was a large, mirror-clad bar on the back wall. To the right was the podium for bands and entertainment. There are photos of the facility. Peter Altenberg, a close friend of Loos, often stayed at Café Capua and wrote the prose text Café Capua (conversation with a sweet American woman) , which was published in 1915 in the volume “Fechsung” by S. Fischer-Verlag Berlin.

history

From the 1920s an entertainment program took place every evening, which changed weekly. Dancers, cabaret artists, opera and operetta singers, art pipers and actors performed there. One of the emcees was, for example, the cabaret artist Erwin Engel (born June 18, 1881), who was very much appreciated in the scene at the time. Other artists performing there were: Boris Julioff , Gusti Edler , Ferry Feretty , Grete Ducheck , Ludwig Grünwald , Anni Andorffi , Hermann Leopoldi , Orloff Donkosaken Quartett, Nana Jwanova , Capua Jazz-Band.

In 1928 the owner of the café, a general partnership with several shareholders, went bankrupt. Presumably in 1927 the municipality of Vienna filed a complaint for tax evasion and demanded a fine of 53,246.32 Schilling, which was to be collected by the court. To avoid this, one of the shareholders tried to deliberately bankrupt the café. In this situation, the Viennese cafetier Otto Pollak was appointed interim administrator in January 1928 . He ran the café for a year.

In 1931 the Café Capua was renamed "Café de Paris". After the Second World War it was used as a casino for American officers. In 1950 a fire broke out that destroyed parts of the restaurant and furnishings. Part of the restaurant was continued under the previous name as an espresso until the 1970s.

Facility

Furnishings from Café Capua keep appearing in auctions and on the Internet. In 2014, for example, six light brown Thonet armchairs from Café Capua were auctioned at Dorotheum in Prague. Coat racks or coat hooks made of metal are available for purchase.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Café Capua in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna Source: Felix Czeike: Historisches Lexikon Wien
  2. ^ Full text of "Fechsung". Retrieved May 27, 2016 .
  3. ↑ See the program booklet from 7.-13. Nov. 1925
  4. ^ Names from the program booklets of 1928; owned by the descendants of Otto Pollak, see below.
  5. ^ In a letter of January 26, 1928, the Execution Court of Vienna, Riemerg. 7, a reward of 50 schillings per day for Otto Pollak as temporary administrator of Café Capua. The letter is in the estate of Otto Pollak in the possession of the family.
  6. ↑ The biannual programs from 1928 are labeled “Dir. Otto Pollak ”and are now in the possession of his descendants.

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 18.8 ″  N , 16 ° 22 ′ 18.3 ″  E