The urban coffee shop

Abstract

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.