What’s the Deal With Giant Chairs in the South of the US?
Finding the answer to this puzzling question led me to reflect on the use of outdoor space in the United States
The first time I laid eyes on one, months ago, likely at the entrance of a restaurant or business, I couldn’t help but think, “Oh, how cool! What an original decoration!” However, my initial excitement quickly turned into bewilderment as I began to spot giant chairs in the most unexpected, scarcely urbanized locations.
The pattern was consistent: huge rocking chairs or Adirondack chairs three, four, or five times bigger than the real ones, positioned in a strategic location on the side of the road for everyone to see.
My latest sighting of giant chairs on the side of what I would describe as a pretty anonymous road, prompted me to go deeper into this phenomenon, driven by sheer curiosity.
After searching the internet for a couple of hours, I was surprised to find that there was little information available. While numerous articles described the histories of specific oversized chairs across the US or informed readers about who currently holds the title for the biggest chair in the world (spoiler: it’s Austria, apparently dethroning the US after a century!), hardly any addressed the burning question:
Why on earth would one construct and display such a colossal chair on the side of the street?
I finally found a meager answer from a local news station called FOX40.
In their brief article, they explained that the giant chairs are spread all over the US and symbolize leisure and conversation, contributing to the flagging of landmarks or tourist attractions for drivers.
Reading this immediately gave me an “Aha!” moment — it explained why I often encountered them in front of places like barbecue restaurants, a symbol of slow cooking, eating, and chilling in the Southern US.
After researching so much on rocking or Adirondack chairs, I found myself connecting the dots with another recent observation, this time also related to porches — the context where these pieces of furniture primarily belong.
Whenever I’m in a suburban area, particularly in North Carolina, where we often visit my partner’s parents, there isn’t a single day where I don’t admire the facades of houses, their meticulously maintained front yards, and beautifully adorned porches.
What was initially a feeling of enchantment, however, slowly turned into bewilderment:
Time and again, I never see anybody occupying the chairs on those porches, not even here where the weather is wonderful for many months of the year.
In addition to that, while in previous months my Italian spirit urged me to take walks around the neighborhood — despite knowing that the majority of the US is not designed for pedestrian activity — on this last occasion, my enthusiasm waned. I began to notice something even more unsettling: the absence of any human presence outside at all.
I must have let my mind wander too far, as the idea of having walks by myself now has become almost a tad bit unnerving. When I walk through the deserted streets lined with beautiful houses, I can’t shake off the feeling reminiscent of horror movies, where beneath a facade of tranquility and peaceful family life, all sorts of horrors lurk.
As a matter of fact, beyond the absence of other humans, many houses in the area also display crosses in their front yards — which, again, range vastly in size, from small ones up to knee-high to others as big as a human — or signs bearing words like ‘he is risen’.
While I’m certainly being a bit too dramatic, the absence of any human beings in the streets or sitting on the porch is undoubtedly an indication of something.
Writer dawn pankonien expresses it beautifully:
“Just like our presidential slogans, our front lawn Adirondacks recall an imagined past, one that is filled with big houses, financial stability, strong senses of community, and easy afternoons (or early evenings) on the porch. In this imagined past, we talk and gossip and narrate and share and belong, and in so doing, we construct and even trust local forms of knowledge.”
It’s true that whenever I walk and stop to admire these beautiful, large, and cozy chairs, it feels like a waste to see them unused.
Often, my mind drifts to envisioning those same spaces being used for chatting with friends or revisits my father’s memories of his childhood in Italy. In the summer evenings, he would often sit in front of his house with his family, neighbors would come over, and they would chat in complete darkness, as only the Italian countryside in the 70s could provide.
Again, dawn pankonien grasps very well the differences with today’s reality:
“An informal counting of instances in which a human is spotted occupying a front lawn Adirondack chair today suggests (to they/she/he who chooses to count) that these chairs, once meant for sitting, are now (almost) entirely aesthetic. In their potential to hold bodies, in their multiplicity (it is always in sets of two or more that we see Adirondack chairs), and in their positioning (angled toward one another), Adirondack chairs say to the world and to us: we converse with our families and our neighbors. We are not alienated from one another, they say. And they tell us we are friendly — invested in social connectivity.
The emptiness of our Adirondack chairs, meanwhile, tells the world and tells us that these are lies.”
There's so much to discuss from here.
For example, that we are more connected than ever before, yet often plagued by loneliness and that this lack of outdoor engagement I have started noticing here in the US is likely connected to that. Many people here, I assume, opt to stay indoors, cocooned in the comfort of their optimally tempered homes (for those fortunate enough to have this privilege), engaging with the world through screens, only to end up feeling isolated at the end of the day, despite the constant connectivity.
I witnessed another example of lack of public space inhabiting on a recent walk I took with my partner’s family along a beautiful trail that meandered from the city into slightly more natural landscapes (albeit highly curated, so we weren't in the wilderness) on Easter afternoon.
Despite it being a day when people typically gather with family or relax, we encountered only one other family using the trail. The emptiness of the trail left me with an eerie feeling, especially as we stumbled upon a few homeless people who had likely taken advantage of the sparsely visited space to set their own tents.
I was shocked—there is this highly curated, masterfully designed trail that likely cost the municipality hundreds of thousands of dollars between design and constant maintenance, and yet, on a day considered by many as a celebration, nobody is using it? (This triggered other questions on how I would have felt, as a woman, using that same trail by myself—hint: unsafe.)
I don’t have a solution for this complex problem, but I admit that I can’t wait for the next time I can visit a suburban area and gather more observations on how people use (or don't use) their public spaces.
Until then, I want to accept the invitation of
who, in her newsletter , invites people to stretch their imagination to envision scenarios of a brighter, more sustainable future.In my own vision, I imagine seeing more populated walking trails and streets, as well as used Adirondack or rocking chairs on the porch, where friends gather to chat after a day of work or after dinner.
I will leave you with a few questions for you to answer in the comments or privately, if you prefer:
How would you like a similar future? Is your present vastly distant from this, or is it not that far off? What does hold people back from using public places?
That’s all from me this week. Take care!
Hi Caterina, I loved reading your story and am very curious about the chairs now. I have noticed the same lack of people on the streets here in the UK, maybe to a slightly less extent but still. Recently I saw a few kids play on the street in the neighbourhood (safely, there was a road closure) and I was completely taken by surprise because it's such a rare sight.
Thank you for mentioning Tiny Glimmers, I'm so grateful you read it. Your story sparked some ideas for me, I might write my next one about this topic.
In the meantime, I wanted to share a cool project in our little town: Talking Benches. And during our recent Kindness Festival they were used as Talking Kindness Benches. I'd love to see some of these in each town. https://www.thegoodheart.uk/events/talking-kindness-bench