Coffeehouse culture
Café Louvre Hosted the Czechoslovak PEN Club’s Founding Meeting in 1925
Café Louvre’s own history says 38 writers met there on 15 February 1925 to found the Czechoslovak PEN Club centre, with Karel Čapek as its first chairman.
Café Louvre, New Town
One café table became the meeting point for founding a national PEN Club centre.
See the café as civic-cultural infrastructure
Café Louvre’s own history records that 38 writers met there in February 1925 for the founding meeting of the Czechoslovak PEN Club centre. A coffeehouse could therefore function as more than hospitality: it could provide neutral urban space for organised cultural life.
Connect the room with literary networks
The same source names Karel Čapek as the new centre’s first chairman. The episode is useful because it makes interwar intellectual culture spatial: writers did not operate only through books and offices, but also through recurring public meeting places.
Avoid turning one café into the whole era
This Story uses Café Louvre as one documented example of First Republic coffeehouse culture. It does not claim every Prague café played the same institutional role.
Reviewed visuals
See the story
Supporting images selected in the Prague Stories visual review. Context images are labeled so they are not mistaken for documentary proof of the exact subject.
A Prague street café and seating are visibly shown.
Quick facts
- The founding meeting took place in 1925.
- Café Louvre says 38 writers attended.
- The meeting founded the Czechoslovak PEN Club centre.
- The source names Karel Čapek as its first chairman.
Questions
What happened at Café Louvre in February 1925?
Its official history says 38 writers met there to found the Czechoslovak PEN Club centre.
Who became the first chairman?
Karel Čapek.
Sources & further reading
- Café Louvre — History — Café Louvre