Browse Exhibits (2 total)
Coffeehouse Culture
The two critera of a coffeehouse:
1.) The coffee-house or a cafe is a public, mainly catering establishment, which bears this description or a combinaiton thereof.
2.) Coffee is among the drinks served in such an establishment.
[taken from Ulla Heise, Coffee and Coffee Houses, (West Chester: Schiffer Publishing, 1987), 92.]
What do you think of when you hear "coffeehouse?" The most obvious answer of course is...coffee! This exhibit will attempt to investigate the history and socio-cultural impact that coffeehouses have had and still have in Vienna. Whilst it is true that coffeehouse patrons historically could indulge and enjoy a nice cup of "kaffe," these institutions also provided a venue for intellectual discussion, news collections through newspapers, and on a fundamental level, social interaction. This exhibit hopes to illustrate that coffee is not the only item served and provided in the coffeehouse.
Wien 1900: Streit der Moden (Vienna 1900: The Fight of Fashion)
For many years Vienna 1900 has been a topic of much interest with considerable thought dedicated to the architectural, artistic, and intellectual production of the time. This exhibit hopes to explore women's fashion around this period, a topic often mentioned, but not given the same consideration as other research areas. In fin-de-siecle Vienna a movement of reform dress was growing supported by such figures as Emilie FlÖge, Gustav Klimt, and members of the Wiener Werkstätte. The corset was eliminated and loose, free-flowing forms took their place. However, despite such interest and intiative by these notable persons of the time, many women continued to live out their lives in corsets, seeing reform dress as a disturbing trend and misguided folly. And so began years of struggle between the two as the "Reformkleid" or reform dress, as it was called, came to symbolize women's liberation and emerging feminism.