The urban coffee shop

This thesis is an investigation of the role of the coffee shop in the urban environment throughout history. Coffee shops spread from the Arab world to Europe and then to the U.S. at the end of the seventeenth century. Coffee shops always had an integral relationship with the public space and they were found on the physical civic structure of the cities. Thus, coffee shops can become a tool to map the city's social activity. This thesis is the first attempt to relate coffee shops to the urban setting, and to define the variables that have affected their appearance or disappearance. Their civic importance nowadays is highlighted along with the significance of technology to shaping coffee shop's new public character. I will present the evolution of coffee shops in the last three centuries and I will mainly focus on their location within the city. In each case, I will illustrate both European and American examples.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Chadios, Konstantinos

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael Dennis.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33031

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33031