Few items are so closely tied to social life than the chair, yes the furniture. From thrones to children’s high chairs, seats have evolved over millennia to serve specialized functions while symbolizing everything from art movements (for instance, modernism) to forms of government (for instance, monarchy). Their form and arrangement affect social interaction, from the oppositional fixed seating of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons to the beach chairs strewn about London’s South Bank riverfront.
For those promoting social development in urban environments, chairs like the simple French Bistro Chair have become essential. Cities across Europe have splashed these bistro chairs and tables across their parks, plazas and corner cafes to create informal spaces of community. The tables and chairs can then be organically arranged by their users: they can stand alone or be clustered in intimate groups of two or three or larger groups of a dozen or more. They can be faced inward to promote conversation, or outward (as many cafés do, so patrons can watch the street life or just worship the sun).
Parisian park with chairs arranged by users.
Chairs can instantly activate empty spaces or blank walls, as pedestrians pause from a stroll to sit and talk or just relax their feet. One month every summer for the past decade, the banks of the Seine River of Paris have been transformed into a temporary beach in place of the riverfront roadway. Paris Plage uses little more than beach chairs, sand and potted palm trees to create a dramatic temporary revisioning of public space, with Parisians and tourists alike filling every beach chair for the sun and spectacle along the Seine.
Overcoming fears of thieves stealing unsecured furniture, freely movable chairs and tables are being used more often in the United States to activate urban spaces. Perhaps the most successful early introduction of this idea was the redesign of Manhattan’ Bryant Park by Project for Public Space. As part of a comprehensive reimagining of the nearly 10-acre park, hundreds of tables and chairs were added for park-goers to rearrange as they wished. Along with other new features added in and around the park, these chairs and tables have established Bryant Park as one of the most vibrant urban spaces in New York and the country.
The tables and chairs have also become a staple of New York City’s Urban Plaza Program, which has transformed numerous streets and intersections into places for people. By using paint to demarcate spaces in the street, then placing pots and plants along the edges of these spaces and filling them with tables and chairs, the NYC Transportation Department has created dozens of new vibrant urban plazas.
Sidewalk café seating oriented to the street.
Most popular among these transformations is Times Square, where portions of Broadway was shut down to car traffic to create a half-dozen plazas. San Francisco and Los Angeles have both replicated this model of paint, pots and bistro chair to create their own urban plazas where cars once traveled. In Long Beach, the Aquarium of the Pacific serves as an anchor along the Downtown waterfront, but also provides an important node of activity along the esplanade surrounding Rainbow Harbor. The large water fountain and massive foyer activate the forecourt of the Aquarium, but there was little to keep a crowd longer than the cycle of the water show or the time needed to wait in line for admission. Though the plaza had been intended to be a gathering space for visitors to the aquarium and the Downtown waterfront, the critical mass of people rarely materialized.
Without completely redesigning the entire space, Aquarium administrators simply gave visitors a place to sit, adding chairs, tables and umbrellas to the space as an experiment. As people started using the tables and chairs, some local food kiosks started migrating over toward the waterfront plaza. After the relocation of its coffee cart from inside the Aquarium onto the plaza proved fruitful, Aquarium administrators decided to build a semi-permanent structure. Now, the chairs and tables are often filled with Aquarium patrons as well as those just enjoying the space, people can be seen enjoying the space even when the Aquarium is closed.
Aquarium of the Pacific newly placed seating.
On Long Beach’s suburban Eastside, the Towne Center is a regional shopping mall, consisting of the typical large-format retailers arranged in a crescent shape with a sea of parking to serve each of them. In the center of the complex, a cluster of restaurants, shops and a multiplex theater features an outdoor stage alongside water fountains and play structures to create a central gathering space. Most prominent in the space, however, is a raised terrace with tables and chairs. Though the seating area is well-occupied, social interaction is constrained as strings of chairs awkwardly link the fixed tables.
This past month, a new restaurant opened on the sleepy eastern edge of the Second Street business corridor in Belmont Shore. Roe Restaurant and Fish Market has been open less than a month, but through a combination of word-of-mouth and a strong street presence, the new business seems to be succeeding where predecessors have struggled. A large part of its street presence comes from the simple addition of a row of fluorescent orange chairs and tables. With the wonderful Southern California weather and nearby beachgoers, the take-out portion of the restaurant can thereby provide the possibility of outdoor, sidewalk dining. The otherwise blank building face is active with patrons enjoying the food and company, serving as the best possible advertisement that the new restaurant is open for business. More broadly, this wall of activity along Roe welcomes those entering Belmont Shore as a place to shop, dine, and socialize.
Bright orange chairs and tables of Roe’s sidewalk dining.
Chairs will not magically attract people but when there is an audience, they can give a reason for them to stick around a bit longer. There are likely a dozen ideal more candidates in Long Beach that could become vibrant urban spaces with the addition of chairs. From the Terrace Theater Plaza to Atlantic Avenue through Bixby Knolls, there are many attractions in the city that just lack a good place for people to take a seat.