Coffeehouse Klein and Casino
This building had been home to the Reading Circle in the middle of the 1800s, while in the first half of the 1900s a coffeehouse and a casino had provided entertainment here for the people of Szentgotthárd.
This groundfloor property can also be seen on the settlement’s map of 1786. In the middle of the 1800s when the building was the home of a merchant, Ferenc Amersin, it was extended with an upper floor. During the repeated reconstructions much of the building’s original beauty had been lost, but the surbased spherical vault of the gate and the guard stones have survived to the present day.
In 1843 the walls of this building could see the birth of the Reading Circle that had played a major role in Szentgotthárd’s cultural and social life and in 1848 it was here in the coffeehouse where soldiers were recruited for the war of independence.
In 1908 Mrs. Miklósné Gaiger and then in 1929 Ferenc Klein had become the owner of the coffeehouse. A separate book-reading and a newspaper-reading section were created in the large rooms, while other rooms of the building – just like in a casino – were used for dancing, entertaining and playing cards. Wedding-feasts, political and other rallies and gatherings were held here. In Szentgotthárd even the first motion pictures, movies were shown here.
The painter Miklós Jobbágyi Gaiger (1892-1959) was born in this house. Kálmán Vakarcs, a teacher and ethnographer (1872-1952) also lived here for a while when he wrote his articles and studies on this country, Szentgotthárd and other settlements of the district.
At present there are shops on the building’s ground floor and residential apartments on the upper level.
Address of the building’s location:
Szentgotthárd, Széll Kálmán tér 14.
