Spaces & Flows: Ninth International Conference on Urban and ExtraUrban Studies

Abstract

Coffee shops in Tehran have gone through an upward and downward path to this day and have had certain roles and performances in different political-social periods. Tehran’s intellectual coffee shops are a relatively emerging phenomenon that began in the 1950s after the return to Tehran of the first generation educated in Europe. Currently, thousands of coffee shops are working in Tehran. Over the past decade, coffee shops have become crucial as public spaces or social hangouts for interacting people enhancing the ability to coexist, especially in today’s big cities. Sometimes these coffee shops are similar to traditional Iranian cafés in content and are shaped like Western European cafés. This study investigates what qualities and situations, both physical and social, encourage citizens of Tehran to gather in the coffee shops as third places. This research was quantitative and qualitative in nature utilizing the techniques of observation and behavioral mapping, interview, visual documentation, and questionnaire. This study, by observing public spaces with functionalities of spending leisure-time, seeks to answer the following questions: What are the parameters in social interactions or human relations that gather people and cause them to feel attached to coffee shops in Tehran? What characteristics and design features attract people to coffee shops in Tehran? Results showed that men use the café for business meetings to a greater extent in comparison to women. However, women and unemployees use the space more likely for visiting friends. Furthermore, patrons who frequently go to the cafés usually choose a café based on its decoration and layout.