An Atmosphere of Pleasant Harmony

architect Francisco Mangado
project La Manduca Restaurant, Madrid, Spain
written by Vera Grimmer

 

For more than three hundred years, establishments serving coffee have been an integral part of the public space in Europe. Paris’s Café Procope, founded in 1686, was frequented by Voltaire and other Encyclopédistes. In Vienna, where Georg Franz Kolschitzky opened the first café after the second Turkish siege of the city, the coffeehouse is still relevant for the city’s social life. During the Belle Époque, when the world was, in fact, already dancing on a volcano, Viennese coffeehouse culture experienced a substantial boom. The coffeehouse popular among the literary circles of the time was the Café Central, located in a Tuscan Renaissance revival style palace built by architect Ferstel.