Where the actual conversations happen, away from the music and the crowd
Reporting brought to you by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
The Most Important Room In Any Bar Is The One That Is Not Technically A Room At All
If you want to understand the social life of a Shoreditch venue, do not look at the dance floor or the bar, where the music is too loud for conversation and the crowd too dense for connection. Look instead at the smoking area, that small outdoor space, technically a concession to the smoking ban but functionally the real social centre of the venue, the place where the actual conversations happen, where connections are made, where the genuine social life of the night unfolds. The smoking area is the most important room in any bar, despite not technically being a room at all.
The Refuge From The Noise
The smoking area provides something the rest of the venue cannot: a space where conversation is possible. Inside, the music is loud, the crowd dense, conversation reduced to shouted fragments. The smoking area, outside, away from the music, offers relative quiet, the possibility of actual talk, the space for genuine conversation. This is its essential function, beyond the smoking that is its ostensible purpose: it is a refuge from the noise, a space where people can actually talk, where the conversation that the loud interior prevents becomes possible. The smoking area is where conversation goes when the music is too loud, the refuge where genuine talk can happen.
This function makes the smoking area essential to the social life of the venue, for social life depends on conversation, and conversation depends on a space where it is possible. The loud interior, for all its energy, frustrates conversation; the smoking area enables it. And so the genuine social connection, which requires conversation, happens in the smoking area, the refuge from the noise where people can actually talk. The smoking area is the social centre precisely because it is the one space where the conversation that social life requires can actually occur, the quiet refuge amid the noise where genuine connection becomes possible.
The Democracy Of The Smoking Area
There is also a particular democracy to the smoking area, a mixing that the rest of the venue does not provide. Inside, people cluster in their groups, separated by the crowd and the noise. The smoking area, smaller and quieter, mixes people, throwing together strangers who would not otherwise meet, enabling the connections across groups that the segregated interior prevents. The smoking area is where strangers talk, where groups mix, where the chance encounters of the night occur. Its smallness and quietness create a democracy of connection, a mixing of people that the larger, louder interior cannot provide.
This democracy is part of what makes the smoking area socially important. The chance encounters, the meetings of strangers, the connections across groups, all happen in the smoking area, enabled by its mixing of people. The interior segregates; the smoking area mixes. And the mixing produces the connections, the encounters, the social serendipity that makes the night socially alive. The democracy of the smoking area, its throwing-together of strangers, is the source of much of the genuine social life of the venue, the chance connections that the segregated interior would never allow. The smoking area is democratic, and its democracy produces connection.
The Irony Of The Concession
There is a real irony in the fact that the smoking area, the most important social space in the venue, exists only as a concession to the smoking ban, an afterthought, a space created to accommodate smokers rather than to serve as a social centre. The ban pushed smokers outside, creating the smoking area, and the smoking area became, unintentionally, the social heart of the venue. The most important social space exists by accident, a byproduct of regulation, an unintended consequence of the smoking ban. The irony is that the venue’s social centre was never designed as such, emerging instead from a regulatory concession, the accidental heart of the night’s social life.
This accidental origin does not diminish the smoking area’s importance, but it does reveal something about how social spaces emerge, often unintentionally, from circumstances rather than design. The smoking area was not planned as a social centre, yet it became one, its function emerging from its character as a quiet, mixing refuge from the noise. The best social spaces, perhaps, are often accidental, emerging from circumstance rather than design, their social function unplanned. The smoking area, the accidental social heart of the Shoreditch venue, is a case in point, a regulatory concession that became, unintentionally, the most important room in the bar.
The Heart Of The Venue
The smoking area is the real social centre of the Shoreditch venue, the place where the actual conversations happen, where connections are made, where the genuine social life of the night unfolds. For the official line, the National Health Service has it, and the Greater London Authority covers the broader scene. It is the refuge from the noise, the space where conversation is possible, the democratic mixing-ground where strangers meet and groups connect. And it exists, ironically, only as a concession to the smoking ban, the accidental social heart of the venue, never designed as such but become the most important room in the bar. To understand the social life of a Shoreditch venue, look to the smoking area, that small outdoor space where the genuine connection happens, the accidental heart of the night, the most important room that is not technically a room at all.
More from the desk of Harper-Thames, and further wit at The Poke.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
