Café Central

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Entrance to Café Central
Café Central inside (2010)
Franzl and Sissi
Figure of Peter Altenberg in the entrance area

The Café Central is a coffee house in Vienna. It is located at Herrengasse 14 in the first district in the former bank and stock exchange building , which is now called Palais Ferstel after its architect Heinrich von Ferstel (a building constructed in the Tuscan neo-Renaissance style).

history

The café was opened in 1876 by the Pach brothers, who later also owned the Schweizerhaus and the Sofiensäle. In the late 19th century, thanks to the demolition of Café Griensteidl , it became one of the most important meeting places for intellectual life in Vienna. The regular guests included Peter Altenberg , Alfred Adler , Sigmund Freud , Egon Friedell , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Anton Kuh , Adolf Loos (who designed the Café Museum ), Leo Perutz and Alfred Polgar . The writers Arthur Schnitzler , Robert Musil and Stefan Zweig were also frequent guests. 250 newspapers in 22 languages ​​were available for entertainment.

The restaurant closed in 1943 after the portico was partially destroyed. In 1975, the year of monument protection, the Palais Ferstel was renovated and the Central reopened. In 1986 the premises were extensively renovated again. Today the Café Central is on the one hand a magnet for tourists, on the other hand a home-style café that lives from the reputation of its literary past.

Anecdotal

A well-known anecdote says that the Austrian politician Heinrich Graf Clam-Martinic , when asked about the possibility of a revolution in Russia , is said to have said: “Who should make a revolution? Perhaps Mr. Bronstein from Café Central? ”This meant Leon Trotsky , bourgeois Bronstein, who lived as an emigrant in Vienna from October 1907 until the beginning of the First World War and regularly played chess at Central . Until 1938 the café was jokingly called The Chess College .

It is said of Peter Altenberg that if he is not in Central, he is on the way there. He is said to have given the café as his home address.

The writer Alfred Polgar wrote in The Theory of Café Central :

“The Central is not a café like other cafés, but a worldview [...] Its residents are mostly people whose misanthropy is as violent as their desire for people who want to be alone but need company [...] The guests of the Central know, love and disregard one another [...] There are creative people who only can't think of anything in Central, far less everywhere else [...]. "

Television broadcast

The house gained nationwide fame through the ORF discussion program Café Central . This was transferred from the Central from 1982 to 1991 under the direction of Ernst Wolfram Marboe .

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Emil Brix, Ernst Bruckmüller, Hannes Stekl (eds.): Memoria Austriae . 1st edition. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2004, ISBN 3-486-56838-8 , p. 319.

Web links

Commons : Café Central  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 37 ″  N , 16 ° 21 ′ 55 ″  E