The Observatory: The View from the Coffeehouse
    

  Beyond its tangibility-- a room with crystal chandeliers, marble topped tables and bentwood chairs with wickerwork seats-- the Viennese cafe was also a state of mind, and an idea. Alfred Polgar explained it as a "...a world view and one, to be sure, whose innermost essence is not to observe the world at all." The coffeehouse created its own progressive society which at the same time established a metaphysical barrier between reality and ideology. The hours spend over a cup of coffee became a culture and a way of life that provided and permitted a peace, a solace, and a mental containment that was so compatible to the minds of the newest leaders of the cultural world.
    

Anton Kuh describes "The Next Table": "My necktie makes him nervous. Not because it's carelessly knotted, but because despite that it has oomph. He'd like nothing better than  to leap up, pull me by the neck, and say: "kindly keep your political views to yourself." The coffeehouse became the mind and soul of Viennese intellectual life. It was  private space in a public sphere. The awareness, on a small scale level, of the story of existence and the contemporaries provided a fueling station, a breeding ground, and a vortex. Even when isolationism and solitude was desires the fusion of ideas, thoughts, philosophies, and schemes were a stimulant for the mind. Artists wanted to flee the public yet wanted to be surrounded by other artists.

Cieling of Cafe Central