May Coffee House | Thomas Abendroth

Coffee house and art

The coffee house has a long and very particular tradition in Austria, especially in Vienna. You don't go there to grab a quick coffee like anywhere else, but you go there to read the paper, meet friends or have business meetings. The coffee house is a communication space about which so many anecdotes have been told. It is believed that the Vienna of 1900's was almost exclusively formed in coffee houses, and all writers and other artists have picked coffee houses as the venues to create their masterpieces.

A lot has changed ever since, also in he coffee house culture. But despite the Italian espresso and the American Starbucks, the Viennese coffee has carried its triumphal march through the country. Coffee house May is one of the youngest and most promising coffee houses in Neufeld, Burgenland.

The owner, Franz May, trusted two personalities with the building and the interior design of his coffee house-architect Thomas Abendroth and artist Hans Wetzelsdorfer- for his particular architectonic and artistic wishes. The environment they created was exactly what he'd desired: a modern but cozy atmosphere, offering through a rich choice in cuisine, cellar and pastries an artistic specialty, way above the usual sense of art in construction, in which the architectonic space of Thomas Abendroth along with the picturesque art of Hans Wetzelsdorfer creates an outstanding symbiosis.

The outcome is a remarkably homogenous and at the same time exciting image, which doesn't lose its technical finesse easily. The art work is basically a photograph of people in a coffee house, which with layers of digital and artistic processing and ingenious coloring, has turned into an almost mysterious oeuvre which neither gives away it's photographic origin, nor hides it's technical qualities and offers the general effect of preference. It fills the guests with a sense of harmony and comfort. As such with the medium of modern art, abstraction and visualization, it's not only successful, but also, one may say, that the overall outcome of architecture, furnishing and art has created a coffee house that respects the tradition but also considers the modern needs. Hans Wetzelsdorfer has made this possible with his remarkable art work.

Text: Prof. Angelica Baeumer, Culture journalist and Author, Vienna

With collaboration of: D.I. Andreas Hradil, D.I. Peter Krabbe

Statics: D.I.Dr. Klaus Petarschka

Building Physics: D.I.Dr. Gernot Scherpke

Light technician: Jakob Uhl

Building Services: Zentraplan

Photos: Rainer Zottele