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Café Faust

The history of Faust

Named after the most famous doubter of German literature, born on a shared-flat sofa, resurrected twice: this is the story of our vaulted cellar in the K4 building. It starts considerably earlier than Faust itself, though.

  1. 1998A storage room with potential

    Beneath the former Siemens building on Geschwister-Scholl-Straße lies a vaulted cellar that the university uses as a storage room. The architecture students housed in the same building are the first to think something could be made of it - and in rector Günter Pritschow, a ragtime pianist himself, they find an open door. The Jazz Society Stuttgart, meanwhile, has been homeless since moving out of the Dixieland Hall on Marienstraße and is looking for a new home. On 23 January 1998 the Jazz Society Stuttgart e.V. files the building application for a licensed bar and restaurant, the jazz cellar; it is approved on 13 October 1998, with opening hours of no more than 5 pm to 2 am.

  2. 2000K4 - the K stands for culture

    A second building application of 22 November 1999 is approved on 19 April 2000, this time as a culture cellar. On 4 May 2000 rector Pritschow and the head of the city's cultural office, Wolfgang Ostberg, open the K4 with a four-handed piano rendition of the "K4 Blues". The name follows on from the university buildings K1 and K2, but here the K stands for culture. 450 square metres, 1.25 million marks in construction costs, licensed for 99 guests at first. University and Jazz Society program the venue together: the jazz musicians on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, student groups from the Studium generale on the other evenings - from the university big band to readings to a tango night taught by a professor of geology.

  3. 2009The idea

    During the university occupation, the idea of a student café is born in a student flat share - on the sofa, of course: a place for study groups, culture and exchange, free of private investors and outside influence. After all, who knows better what students need at their university than the students themselves?

  4. 2011FAUST powered by Mephistopheles

    Because Baden-Württemberg had no constituted student body at the time, the students simply founded their own association: Mephistopheles e.V. After a year and a half of searching for a room, negotiating with the university and drafting budgets, Café Faust opened in the former jazz cellar on the city-centre campus in November 2011 - under the motto „Hier bin ich Mensch, hier darf ich's sein!“ - here I am human, here I may be. Back then FAUST also stood for Fachschafts- und AStA-Café Uni Stuttgart.

  5. 2016The big rebuild

    A new generation of motivated students transforms the old, unused vaulted cellar beneath the university: planning, hard labour and organising - day and night. In the summer of 2016, Faust reopens its doors, now carried by the association Freunde des Faust e.V.

  6. 2020Corona

    In March 2020 the pandemic forces Faust to close its doors. The vaulted cellar falls silent - but is not forgotten.

  7. 2022The second resurrection

    Those who have performed the miracle of resurrection once can do it a second time: after long planning, many changes in the team and countless volunteer hours, Café Faust reopened in May 2022.

  8. TodayAnd onwards

    Generations of students have passed Faust on, each leaving their mark. The rest of the story? We are writing it right now - happy to write it with you. Come in, feel home!