Max Dudler—Narrating Spaces

Where Did the Mouse Celebrate?
Kasper König
In 1988, I started a professorship at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. For
anything to do with business, even outside of my studies, I liked to meet
at one of the pizzerias or cider-serving Äppelwoi-serving pubs in
Sachsenhausen. I also enjoyed going to the Schwarzes Cafe, which was
a gathering-place between the Portikus exhibition hall hibbdebach (north
of the river) and the Städelschule dribbdebach (south of the river).
Like a stage, the café was situated—a perfect, formalized room, like an
Edward Hopper painting—between the theater and Schweizer Platz,
with the Main river flowing between the two points. I usually leaned
my bicycle, unlocked, against one of the two big display windows,
keeping an eye on the street to prevent any potential theft by sprinting
out—a tactic somewhere between outpacing, charging, and immediate
action. Schweizer Straße was ideally situated: there was a Sparkasse
bank on the corner of Gartenstraße, a newspaper and cigarette shop
right nearby, and the tram and subway were just a hop, skip, and jump
away.
What made the place was its amazing readability. There was a
black-lacquered dividing wall right behind the door, the same size as
the opening, behind which the entire service area was housed. At the
end of the room there was a mirrored wall. Everything was very
straightforward—there were no more than ten tables covered with white
tablecloths, as well as a long bar. The acoustics were good, and the
service was friendly without being smarmy. Even alone you could feel
comfortable in the simplicity, enjoying the ebb and flow of guests. The
dark and very beautifully finished interior elements integrated into the
framework of the white, tectonically spare surrounding room and its
truly tight furnishing. The concept of the place allowed for many social
constellations. For a time, the brothers Max and Karl Dudler immensely
enriched their client-city Frankfurt there—much like the Portikus
abutting the Obermainbrücke, which I interpreted as a shoebox with a
skylight behind a classicistic façade.
An experience I remember well summarizes the quality of the place for
me. I had an appointment at the café with my daughter Lili, who was
studying singing at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing
Arts. That afternoon, three yuppies from the stock exchange had
congregated there, boasting loudly on their cell phones, which in those
days were still unusual, extremely large, and bone-shaped. During her
training, Lili had learnt to whisper in a way that could be heard and
easily understood a few tables away. At the time, there was a vogue for
jokes referring to the children’s TV program Die Sendung mit der Maus
(The Show with the Mouse), like there would later be for jokes about
blondes or Opel Mantas. She managed to tell a story—fit for the stage
and ostensibly privately—about the orange mouse and the little blue
elephant from the show for the benefit of the three who were telephoning
indiscreetly. It went like this: The mouse and the elephant are on a
walk together, when the mouse unexpectedly falls down a hole. The
elephant reaches his long trunk down the hole and rescues the mouse.
The two are delighted with their friendship and continue on their way.
Then the elephant unexpectedly falls into a deep hole as well. The