The first in a series of readings titled The Death of the Café will explore the transformation of café culture in Brno and, by extension, throughout Central Europe—from local café traditions to the global “urban café” boom. The event will take place at Brno’s oldest continuously operating café (since 1937).

The guests will be architect Matthias Moroder, who has been co-directing the Architektur im Magazin gallery in Vienna for several years, and sociologist Magdaléna Vyletová, who specializes in the development of Brno’s cafés. You can look forward to readings such as “Café Society” (Jack Self), “The Vanished World of Brno Cafés” (Karel Altman), and a description of Viennese cafés from the essay “Das Lokal” (Hermann Czech); Roland Barthes will also be featured. 

The reading is loosely connected to the performative project Café Urban at the 45 000 l, which, through a fictional café and a walk through the sites of Brno’s defunct cafés, connected their historical communities with the contemporary culture of “urban cafés” and critically examined the role the café plays today as a public and social space. 

The 4AM Book Club brings together text, place, and shared discussion. Three meetings in different parts of Brno explore three different themes through texts that are not just meant to be read, but also to be collectively reflected upon, questioned, and discussed. What happens when a café ceases to be a café? What remains of the architectural dreams of the 1990s? And do we still need architectural criticism today?

These won’t be lectures or a traditional “book club”; we’ll read theoretical and literary texts, essays, and interviews together—aloud and in silence, individually and in groups. Discussions with invited guests will take place each time at a specific location, the character of which will provide the context for the texts being read and allow us to compare their themes with the given environment. The texts will be available on site; no advance preparation is necessary. The first in a series of three will be held in English; the following two will be in Czech. 

Project curator: Kryštof Otto Fučík

Visual identity: Pavlína Smékalová

Venue: Zemanova cukrárna (lounge on the second floor)

The event will be held in English.