It is also common to find lavish descriptions of buildings before they are opened for use. I had occasion to visit the prototype "flexible school," a building shell whose internal dimensions can be altered quickly and inexpensively through the use of demountable wall partitions. Thousands of educators had visited the model and read the well illustrated pamphlets describing the building. Unfortunately, the group of architects and educators who developed the prototype was disbanded even before the first school patterned along the lines of the model opened its doors. The model itself was to be used for other purposes. I am not criticizing this project specifically, for what is involved is standard practice in architecture. A recent issue of College Management described how Wisconsin State University at Stephens Point saved a great deal of money by remodeling a dormitory with smaller furniture so that a third occupant could be added to each double room. I have no objection to the idea in theory, but it would be nice to know how this affected the students. The same phenomenon occurs in city planning, too. It was not until I was three-quarters through a glowing account of the New Town of Columbia, Maryland that I realized the ground had been broken only recently, and it would be years before the site resembled a town. I have no argument with planning a city before it is built--that seems the logical time to plan it--but rhapsodic accounts of how it will work in practice are likely, particularly if they are written by prominent architects and planners, to outlive the city. The activities, population, and economic base of the community may change completely, but people outside will know New Town from its preconstruction plans and models.
What is needed is a shift in temporal perspective. just as scientists are thinking more about the future, designers must shift some of their attention away from the past (buildings that have been) and the future (Utopias) and study buildings on the narrow plane of the present and from the standpoint of user behavior. Individual practitioners must abandon the philosophy of "never look back." In many cases there is ample money for a library committee or school board to spend several years visiting comparable facilities when they are planning a new building. Occasionally they may go to Europe to see what is happening there. Yet there will be no money for follow-up studies of the building in action. Once the structure is opened for public use, the architect disappears from the scene.
The doctrine that architecture can be conceived of as great hollow sculpture or timeless unchanging form whose existence is an end in itself must be discarded. Architecture may be beautiful but it must be more than that; it must enclose space in which certain activities can take place comfortably and efficiently. Not only must form follow function, but it must assist it in every way. The personal expression of the architect must yield to the functions that the building serves. It is possible to imagine a different situation where architects would be primarily artists given free rein to enclose certain spaces beautifully. Someone else would be charged with the task of finding uses for the hollows within the sculptures committee would decide that this hollow would make a good factory, that one a courtroom, and the small one over here a suitable private home for a retired couple. Although the situation sounds improbable, it is the ordinary state of affairs in basic science. A man applies for $50,000 to study iron oxides or plankton, and it is up to others, primarily applied scientists, engineers, and commercial firms, to determine how the results may be utilized. At the moment, however, architecture remains an applied discipline, and the architect plans structures to meet his clients' needs.
An alternative to a functionalism based on user behavior and satisfaction is to use symmetry, cohesiveness, or landscape fittingness as absolute values. These are not only highly subjective, but they also place undue emphasis on external appearance. They have encouraged the development of an extensive self-congratulation system within the design professions. Rarely are design awards based on the experiences of the building's users, or even a site visit by the busy panel members, but on the basis of glossy photographs. Reform of the panel system seems less important than the question of what criteria the jury uses to evaluate buildings. The present system is reasonable if architects are giving themselves awards for sculpture, but not if the awards are intended for building in which certain activities will take place.
The visual thinking of the architect contrasts greatly with the abstract analytical thinking-- of the social scientist, philosopher, and most laymen and represents a serious impediment to fruitful dialogue between them. Architects use words to drape around pictures, but the layman sits waiting for a message that will be exemplified or illustrated by the pictures. This makes it extraordinarily difficult to preach to architects through words alone, a fact recognized by most design periodicals ("glossies"), which are known for their lavish illustrations and inane texts. On several occasions I was surprised to find design editors removing statistical tables from articles I had submitted and requesting photographs instead. This makes sense to me now, and wherever I discuss a topic with designers, e.g., dormitories or airport waiting rooms, I generally have several eight by ten glossy prints with me.
The stage that each design profession has reached can be measured along a scale from pure artistry at one end to pure scientism at the other. Closest to the artistic end are the interior designers who operate mainly on a pre-empirical intuitive level. The notion of Period Design relies on historical research of a sort, but the net effect is one of copying or weaving elements into a coherent pattern without attempting to evaluate the effects of different arrangements. Architecture is some-what further along in that it is an empirical art, relying heavily on the accumulation of experience ,with different building types. When it comes to materials and structures, architects join engineers in carrying out systematic research, but in the behavioral realm, the way buildings affect people, architects fall back on intuition, anecdote, and casual observation. Consultants flourish in the design fields because there is no body of information assembled in such a way that it is useful to architects and other design professionals. Hence the tremendous importance of library consultants, church consultants, hospital consultants-all experts by experience, older men and women whose ideas may be behind the times.
The modern architectural firm is a bureaucratic monster designed to cope with the other bureaucracies--corporate as well as governmental--with whom it must deal. At the heart of an architectural giant is a computer surrounded by departments of architectural systems, structures, mechanical systems, electrical systems, urban systems, and research. One step removed from this are the Category Teams dealing with commercial buildings, educational buildings, health buildings, public housing, and so forth. These are the real design groups who develop the specifications for each category of building. Their findings are used by the specific project teams working on individual jobs. As men concerned with the application of knowledge and technique, architects have usually worked in teams. In the past the teams could be small, consisting of an architect and a few skilled workmen. Now the teams can be extraordinarily large and will include a design group, structures people, sales specialists, sewage system analysts, town planners, as well as economists, sociologists, and environmental biologists. With the increasing number of specialists in the design process, communication problems multiply. Many architects who have joined large construction firms or investment houses are indistinguishable from other corporation employees.
Even the hallowed blueprints are on the way out. In five years' time, all computations and visual representations may be done by the computer. The 1,100 sheets of drawings that went into the design of the Chicago Civic Center Court Building and cluttered the architect's office for almost a year will be a thing of the past. Such massive accumulations of paper frequently produced an unseemly rush to "finish the project and get the drawings out of the office!"
The architect's bete noire is the builder, who may be seen as the unprofessional and unscrupulous fellow who builds houses without architects from designs drawn on the backs of envelopes. There is also a great deal of rivalry, within the other design professions. Engineers criticize architects for an overconcern with esthetic values and a neglect of function and efficiency. Interior designers accuse architects of trying to dominate the design field and doing them out of their commissions on purchases. Landscape architects resent being called in last on a job to apply the green paint. There is great fear that non-professionals affiliated with large companies will come to dominate the entire design field. Architects criticize nonarchitect-designed homes estimated to constitute 90 per cent of the market. Planners lament the expediency of elected officials who discard years of planning to satisfy an influential land developer or business firm. All too often the gas station or power line goes where the company wants it and the plan goes back into the files. Interior designers battle valiantly against incursions of furniture manufacturers and wholesale distributors into their domain. Independent landscape architects take a dim view of the greenery manufacturers who market their wares directly to an unsuspecting public. Nor are landscape architects very happy about the role of engineers in the planning process. This conflict was clear in the recent resignation of Lawrence Halprin as landscape architect for the Bay Area Rapid Transit. Halprin complained that lie was never asked the right questions about anything important. The corridor for the transit system had already been selected, and matters such as placing it underground or above ground or using under-passes versus overpasses were regarded as policy decisions outside the scope of the design consultants. The engineers apologetically explained that they didn't have any money for mosaic tiles in the train stations or for fountains in the plaza, but Halprin wasn't interested in these things--he wanted to discuss rights-of-way, the effects of an elevated system on the surrounding community, and the need for pedestrian routes over the right-of-way.
This is not intended to be a book for architects, designers, or city planners as such, even though several chapters are aimed more or less in their direction. All people are builders, creators, molders, and shapers of the environment; we are the environment. The specialized design fields see themselves helpless in the face of massive problems on every side. The day when society can call upon the architect-priest or the scientist-priest or the psychoanalyst-priest to solve its major ills has passed. Society needs the talents of the gamut of specialized and unspecialized professions centered around human survival and welfare. Within these groups there is an intense realization that over-specialization in a changing world is a sure prescription for failure. Across the nation, schools of architecture and design are becoming institutes of environmental planning, environmental science, design science, and environmental engineering. At the moment the change is more evident on paper than in curriculum, but it is coming.
Much has been written about behavioral science as a tool for regimentation and thought control. There has been less discussion of the ways that social science can free men from misconceptions and strengthen individuality in an increasingly conformist society. The Kinsey report has had a profound effect upon discussions of human sexual behavior. It would be an exaggeration to say that it has produced the so-called sexual revolution, but there is no question that people can discuss homosexuality, adultery, and premarital intercourse in a more meaningful and concrete way now. We do not have to accept the Kinsey statistics as precise or immutable to gain considerable knowledge from the reports. Kinsey helped dispel some of the fog and confusion surrounding sexual behavior by using terms in an unemotional and consistent way, which has enabled later workers, psychologists as well as zoologists, to ask meaningful questions and undertake experimental work that would have been inconceivable 25 years ago. As with research into sexual behavior, environmental studies have not followed any over-all plan; they have proceeded in fits and starts depending upon local interest and the availability of funds. The concern of the 1900's with the esthetics of color shifted as interest in pure philosophy waned to the functional aspects of color in homes and factories, and finally, in the era of the doctor-priest, to the therapeutic prescription of color. Investigators have displayed great ingenuity in locating funds for environmental studies. The Bell Telephone Company has supported work on communications flow through spatial networks; civil defense people have underwritten studies of crowding; the Navy has backed some very fine work on group processes in confinement; the Ford Foundation supports studies of community development, and the Department of Interior is concerned -with recreation and resources management. Many large corporations have supported basic research into people's reactions to light, sound, and color patterns. Under the heading of human engineering or ergonomics, they have also supported applied studies of carpeting in hospitals and schools, back-ground music in stores and offices, and the legibility of highway roadsigns. A landmark in this sort of work is the recent publication of the volume The Bathroom: Criteria for Design, summarizing eight years of work undertaken by Cornell authorities and supported largely by plumbing suppliers.
Our book represents an attempt to elucidate some of the questions of value involved in the design process in which matters of physical form aiise only after one has decided what he wants to do. As the chapter title suggests ("axiology" is the study of values), design questions involve value judgments--most specifically, whose values are to be served? 'Ihe term "building program" is a misnomer for a preliminary analysis that should be more philosophical than technical, a statement of purpose rather than a list of hardware.
The clearest realization of the connection between environmental form and human behavior is taking place in the institutional field. People trained in hospital administration, education, and business management are aware of the important contributions research and development have made in most aspects of their work. They are surprised to find that decisions regarding the physical plant amounting to tens of millions of dollars are made without adequate information about user behavior. Whether it is a matter of separate or bunk beds in college dormitories, secluded or exposed nurses' stations in hospitals, open or partitioned offices, ceilings eight or eight-and-one-half feet in apartments, it is evident that little is known as to how the alternatives a.ffect people. One of the best descriptions of the problem is found in an article about school furniture by the educator L. K. Pinnell who interviewed teachers, principals, pupils, custodians, and furniture manufacturers. At any given moment, he felt, superintendents, business managers, and purchasing agents were sitting down with salesmen and arranging the purchase of school desks, classroom teachers in other schools were evaluating their own furniture and making recommendations to their own administrators, custodians were cleaning and moving furniture, muttering to themselves and the maintenance engineer about the problems they encountered, pupils were telling one another or their parents whether or not they were pleased with their new desks, and all this went on while furniture manufacturers decried their lack of information on how furniture fit into an educational program. Collectively, Pinnell believes, these various parties possess all the information available regarding school seating, but each group is unfamiliar with the information possessed by the others. Teachers lack information about the furniture that is available and often are not consulted when it comes to purchases; business managers are removed from the classroom situation and often evaluate furniture largely on the basis of cost, style, and a good sales talk.
Designing functional areas or multipurpose space does not complete the architect's task. It is equally important to show the residents how to use the space productively and to develop effective institutional policies governing space allocation and utilization. A man who is assigned a large work area may use it less efficiently than someone assigned half the area. This is related to life style since some people will accommodate themselves to anything, no matter how uncomfortable or dysfunctional, either because they do not know how to improve the situation or believe that rules forbid them to alter the arrangement. This is especially likely to happen in institutional architecture where space is occupied by nonowners for short periods. How many people significantly alter the chairs in an airport terminal or a doctor's waiting room? It is a matter of intimidation, inertia, and the belief that results do not warrant extra effort. People accept the idea that the existing arrangement is justified according to some mysterious principle known only to the space owners-Dr. X must have some reason for placing his chairs so close together, and the store owner must have some logical purpose for putting the shopping carts in front of the magazine rack. It frequently happens that the chief enforcers of spatial norms are the janitors and maintenance employees. It may be asking a great deal of an architect, but he must be sensitive to the intimate connections between spatial norms, bureaucracy, and the functions of a building. It is exceedingly likely that, should he return for a visit after the building has been in use, there will be two sales managers in the offices he designed for one, and 40 pupils in the classroom he designed for 30.
This book is divided into two parts; the first an introduction to spatial behavior and the second an application of these concepts to particular settings. Chapters 2 to 6 will describe various mechanisms for controlling the distribution and density of people, the methods that have been evolved to keep people out of one another's way. This will include dominance relationships in which a person knows where he belongs socially, and territoriality, his knowledge of his spatial place. We will discuss the intimate connection between space and status and then explore what is meant by privacy. Despite the large numbers of people around, we simply are not bumping into one another. Various conventions and rules have been developed to complement architectural forms in keeping people out of one anotlier's way. Although we will discuss research with animals as well as humans, there is no implication that the underlying mechanisms are the same in both cases.
The second part of the book is devoted to certain man-environment system; ranging from schools to old folks' homes considered from the standpoint of user behavior. These examples are mainly for illustrative purposes, to show methods and their applications, rather than for their substantive findings. I believe that social sciences make their greatest contribution by offering methods by which information about human behavior can be objectively and validly obtained, rather than formulating detailed laws about people's responses to blue walls, round buildings, or thatched roofs. People live and multiply in the frigid Arctic, Near East deserts, African rain forests, and the megalopolis of the eastern seaboard. People's needs are neither rigidly fixed nor infinitely varied. There is a price to be paid for every environmental adaptation, and frequently that price is the disappearance of species members who could not make the change. When we speak of user behavior we do not mean some hypothetical adaptation of which some humans somewhere may be capable, but rather the behavior of the immediate or prospective occupants. We will turn our attention now to the spatial accommodations of people in face-to-face groups.
Designed for Drinking
Liquor is an important factor in the tourist business. A Wisconsin official complained that in sparsely populated wooded areas, where liquor licenses are few, promoters are reluctant to build resorts and vacation facilities, whatever the scenic charms may be. (Landscape, Winter 1967)
If a library is designed to encourage privacy and keep people out of each other's way, taverns are designed for just the opposite purpose. Anyone who walks through the door can partake of the companionable atmosphere as well as the available beverages. Pubs are by title public houses designed for sociability. Privateness, exclusiveness, and the ability to restrict entry are at a minimum. This is not true of all drinking places, such as private clubs which do restrict entry, but it is the special characteristic of the public house as an open region that makes it interesting to us from an environmental standpoint. No one tries to find privacy in a pub. One can find amusement and commodities that will change mood and relieve anxiety, companionship, and escape from family or office. However, the relief from stress or unpleasant interpersonal contact is not the same as privacy. Nor is the atmosphere due solely to the availability of alcohol, for the same condition was characteristic of many coffee houses. Indeed the teahouses of the Orient and the coffee houses of the Middle East bear many resemblances to the American tavern. Here is a poster from an old English coffee house:
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together.
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind
But take the next seat that he can find.
The Viennese coffee house of today is described in these terms:
To many a Viennese his coffee house is his home away from home, his haven and island of tranquility, his reading room and gambling hall, his sounding board and grumbling hall. There at least he is safe from nagging wife and unruly children, monotonous radios and barking dogs, tough bosses and impatient creditors.
Cafe patrons around the world may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Furniture designer Henning Larsen was consulted by Copenhagen cafe owners whose customers lingered endlessly over coffee. Larsen developed a chair that exerts disagreeable pressure upon the spine if occupied for over a few minutes, The Larsen chair is now being marketed in New York and other cities. Hotel keepers and tavern owners have also been concerned with people being "too comfortable." This is particularly true when they occupy public space without spending money. When he took over the Waldorf Hotel, Conrad Hilton observed that the comfortable divans were occupied day after day by the same characters. Although they were correctly dressed and well-mannered, they did not spend money in the hotel. Hilton remedied the situation by moving the couches out of the lobby into the nearest food and drink area of the hotel. In planning new hotels, the policy is to "make the lounges small and the cafes big."
The same view is held by those who design airport terminals, which are perhaps the most sociofugal public spaces in American society. In most terminals it is virtually impossible for two people sitting down to converse comfortably for any length of time. The chairs are either bolted together and arranged in rows theater-style facing the ticket counters, or arranged back-to-back, and even if they face one another they are at such distances that comfortable conversation is impossible. The motive for the sociofugal arrangement appears the same as that in hotels and other commercial places--to drive people out of the waiting areas into cafes, bars, and shops where they will spend money.
[Sociofugal arrangements drive people toward the periphery of a room as contrasted to sociopetal arrangements, which fools people towards the center and thereby bring them together. See Humphrey Osmond "The Relationship Between Architect and Psychiatrist" in Psychiatric Architecture, ed. Charles Goshen, (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 1959)]
Dr. Johnson compared the public environment of a tavern with the private environment of a home where a guest cannot truly be at ease. The guest must always exert care and circumspection since the home is not his own. In the pub there is a general freedom from anxiety--any man with the money can be certain of a welcome. Paul Halmos describes the pub of this period as "the only free, non-esoteric, non-exclusive, weatherproof, meeting place for the ordinary worker." Sherri Cavan, an American sociologist whose doctor's degree was based on her visits to San Francisco bars, describes public drinking places as open regions--people who are present, whether acquainted or not, have the right to engage others in conversation and the duty to accept overtures from them. The concept was developed by Erving Goffman and goes beyond the obligation not to snub others, to the point where a person cannot be offended when someone else approaches him? A patron can still arrange to be alone, bunching himself up at the end of the bar and staring down at his drink, or sitting at a remote table facing the wall, but these positions and postures must be maintained rigorously. Even this display of a desire for separation does not guarantee privacy, since at any time some sympathetic denizen may decide to initiate psychotherapy.
Cavan contrasts the lateral arrangement at the bar with the face-to-face arrangement at tables. The boundaries between individuals in rows are unclear and easier to cross than those of people seated around a table. At the bar one finds tendencies for encounters to be more fluid and unstable. The likelihood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance between them. As a general rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over which patrons would attempt to initiate an encounter. Any more than this would require raising one's voice to a level that would annoy other patrons. Cavan describes how interaction patterns vary between mixed sex and like sex pairs. Two men conversing with an empty stool between them are likely to remain that way since a move to adjacent stools would generally bring them too close to one another. However, if a man initiates a conversation with a woman at the bar with an empty chair between them, he is likely to move over to the adjacent stool in order to prevent someone else from coming between them.
There are numerous accounts of the connection between lighting, noise level, and duration of stay. It is reported that as illumination increases so does noise level, and both will reduce the amount of time people remain inside a drinking establishment. If a restaurateur wants to capitalize on high turnover, he uses high illumination levels and doesn't worry too much about soundproofing. On the other hand, if he wants people to remain a long time he uses dim lighting and sound-absorbing surfaces such as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilings. Low illumination will permit greater intimacy between couples and thereby increase seating capacity. The findings are reasonable and accord well with studies of sensory facilitation between modalities, but they also should be systematically verified.
Neither has there been much empirical confirmation of the view that "the casual drink tastes better in pleasant surroundings. The company seems friendlier if the room is congenial, the fire bright, and the host or his servants welcoming." The influence of environment on drug effects urgently requires further study. Many of the avid believers in the psychedelic revolution insist that drugs should be taken in a setting with soft music, carpeted floors, dim lighting, and pleasant company. They attribute some proportion of "bad trips" to the unfortunate conditions under which the drugs are taken, e.g., a frightened young man alone in his apartment with the shades drawn, towels stuffed under the door, and a chair propped against the doorknob. Maslow and Mintz demonstrated that attractive surroundings would affect people's judgment of pictures and their mental outlook. Since society has seen fit to legislate the decor of the tavern, the amount of outside advertising, and whether drinks can be served to people seated or standing up, the least that is needed is some factual information on the role of tavern milieu as it affects the drinker's outlook and behavior.
Whereas many people feel that environment facilitates the mood enhancing effects of alcohol, the obverse position that alcohol will aid in the appreciation of the environment is not widely accepted. Museum directors and national park authorities, to name only two groups, are generally opposed to the consumption of alcohol on the premises. Cavan cites the ruling of the California State Park Commission that "if the intent of the winter park authority is to provide access to an area of outstanding natural beauty and outdoor recreation, sale of liquor at tile mountain station will not enhance this experience." Actually there is very little information on the way that alcohol affects aesthetic experience apart from anecdotes and moral strictures. Park authorities and museum directors object less to the effects of alcohol on the viewer's perception than on his behavior as it affects other people. Even if it were established that alcohol enhanced aesthetic experience, its role in this culture in automobile accidents and aggressive behavior might be sufficient to keep it out of culture palaces or recreation areas and confined to settings specifically designed for its use.
The physical form of the drinking establishment is as much a product of legal restrictions as economic laws and social customs. The field of tavern design reveals quickly the limitations of a purely functional approach to architectural problems. In New York City the public bar may not be the major feature of the establishment; in Saskatchewan a patron may not be served standing; in Alberta the beer parlor must close during dinner hour; public drinking places in Chicago must have an outside window that enables people outside to look in. It would be hazardous to design a drinking place without the assistance of local architects, beverage control officials, and city fathers; generally it is wise to bring them all into the act. Finding a place to drink or buying a bottle are two instances where interstate travel makes a real difference. One can eat the same food in a Holiday Inn anywhere, but he can order wine but not whiskey with his meal in one place, and in the next he must bring his own bottle and entrust to the waiter the onerous task of pouring it. Generally it is cheaper for a person to drink at home than in the local tavern. The raison d'être of the tavern goes beyond the opportunity for people to drink alcoholic beverages. This fact must be understood before one can understand the social and physical form of the tavern. A man goes to a bar to drink, to see and meet other people. It is a place to avoid boredom and existential loneliness. A bar allows for the transformation of loneliness into alienation with the availability of oblivion through alcohol.
Within the United States there are major regional and local differences in drinking places; within the same city there will be neighborhood taverns that draw their clientele from the surrounding blocks and downtown cocktail lounges that draw people from all over the city and beyond. The neighborhood pub will encourage sociability among regular patrons, but the outsider will be looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Such pubs are frequently called "locals" by regular customers. This is the situation in Ireland where each crossroads has its own cherished public house with a fiercely dedicated clientele. Frequently these are regarded as private preserves by the regulars, and the welcome mat is extended to visitors only if they are known to the regulars. An outside sign reading "Select" informs ladies to keep out. A study of neighborhood taverns in Chicago by Gottlieb showed that 83 per cent of the patrons resided within two blocks of the tavern in which they were interviewed. On the other hand it is not difficult in any American city to find examples of the bar where meaningful contact is at a minimum, V. S. Pritchett describes the lonely men in New York City sitting speechlessly on a row of barstools, with their arms triangled on the bar before a bottle of beer, their drinking money before them? If anyone speaks to his neighbor under these circumstances, he is likely to receive a suspicious stare for his efforts. The barman is interested in the patrons as customers -- he is there to sell, they are there to buy. Another visiting Englishman makes the same point when he describes the American pub as a
hoked up salon, the atmosphere is as chilly as the beer . . . when I asked a stranger to have a drink, he looked at me as if I were mad. In England if a guy's a stranger, it's automatic that each guy buys the other a drink. You enjoy each other's company, and everyone is happy.
Yet even in England the complaint has been made that
A good deal of drinking today is vertical and hurried: far too infrequently do we meet the place where you are welcome to sit comfortably round table or fire, talk and drink at your ease without a waiter hovering around, emptying the ashtrays, whipping away any empty bottles or glasses, as a mute reminder that it is about time you reordered.
Another example of an isolated environment in New York City, probably overlapping in its clientele with the lonely New York box, is the movie house showing pornographic films:
As to that audience, regardless of time of day or night, weekday or weekend, it is composed of lone men who sit passively and patiently as far as possible in a geometric mosaic worthy of ninth-century architects. It is considered bad form to sit directly behind, or behind and one seat to the side, of an earlier arrival. And, in five or six trips, I never heard a patron address a single word to another patron.
The pub owner is legally responsible for the acts of his patrons. He can lose his license if he serves people who are underage, drunk, disorderly, gambling, engaged in lewd or lascivious behavior, or who establish liaisons for such acts in his place? The liquor commissioners in Nova Scotia may "at their own discretion and for any reason they deem sufficient" suspend any license they have granted. Owners of theaters, bowling alleys, and hotels are also accountable for some acts of their patrons, but the range of offenses as well as the intensity of official scrutiny and enforcement are much more evident in drinking establishments. As one man wryly observed,
the only person who would possibly succeed as an English publican is an unusually erudite and resourceful lawyer .... Considering the number of mistakes a [publican] can make, it's astonishing that there's ever time in the law courts for dealing with other matters, like murder and income tax evasion?
Drinking establishments establish their own unique character, which will determine who will be attracted to the premises, how they will act, what they will drink, and how long they will stay. The bar that serves the young unmarried set will attract those who want to associate with young unmarried people--probably other young unmarried people. Jim Ghidella interviewed 48 patrons at "The Hut," a decrepit beer parlor in a university town, unique in that it was the only establishment there that did not attract students. The atmosphere was dingy, and the barstools were worn and patched. Almost all the patrons were white males of working class background. More than a third of those interviewed visited the establishment once or twice every day, and most of the remainder came once a week or more. Most of the regulars restricted their bar attendance to this particular place. They felt it was "an established place" which contained working people of their own age. Although four-fifths of the patrons came in alone, almost all made some contact with another person during their stay in the bar.
The sort of patron who prefers a low-key working class atmosphere does not object to drab surroundings. In fact, he prefers this to newer establishments. One cannot readily ask about the "functional environment'' of a drinking establishment without knowing the prospective clientele. Whatever is built is likely to attract those individuals adapted to the establishment. Careful choice of location, external appearance, decor, and price list will influence who the patrons will be. This illustrates a fundamental difference between the architect's and the biologist's ideas of functionalism. To a biologist a species is adapted when it fits into its surroundings--for example, when a bird beak is suitable for obtaining the sorts of seeds available in its biotope, however unusual or grotesque that beak may appear to zoo visitors. Biologists are generally concerned with things as they are, or the reasons why they developed as they did, rather than environments and organisms that do not yet exist. He is concerned with adaptation and habitat selection, whereas the architect is concerned with planning a new world.
To understand the connection between physical form, social custom, and legal regulations, I undertook a series of observations in beer parlors in Edmonton, Canada. The lowest common denominator of a Canadian beer parlor is that only beer can be purchased (by the glass or bottle), and it must be consumed on the premises. There are numerous variations of this theme, particularly in regard to the sale of food and the presence of women. Some years ago the Province of Alberta forbade men and women to sit in the same beer parlor--each hotel had two rooms, one for men and one for women. A man would escort his lady to the door of her beer parlor, make sure she found a seat, and then hasten back to the men's side, call the waiter over, and order for himself and his lady next door. The situation has improved somewhat, largely at the insistence of the hotel owners. There are still two sections in the Edmonton beer parlors, one for men and the other for ladies and escorts. If for some reason a woman wants to drink only in the presence of other women, she is out of luck. There were 32 beer parlors in Edmonton, a city of 350,000 in western Canada, in addition to about the same number of cocktail lounges, dining lounges, and private clubs. In contrast, Worktown, which was studied by the Mass Observation team, contained 304 pubs to service 175,000 people. The men's section of the Edmonton pub, which was the concern of our study, was a large open area containing tables, each surrounded by four chairs. No patron could be served standing, and singing and group games were forbidden.
A recent article describes the Canadian drinking man in these terms:
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to spot an English-Canadian tourist drinking abroad .... In a bar where everybody else is standing, the Canadian is the one sitting down. When it comes time to order another round, the Canadian is the one who compulsively drains his glass to the last drop before handing it back to the waiter. When the locals break into song, the Canadian looks ill at ease. The bright lights bother him a bit and so do all the signs exhorting him to drink this or that brew .... The reason Canadians tend to have a Pavlovian response to alcohol instead of regarding it as a relaxing pastime, must have something to do with the conditioning they receive in their native environment. They come. after all, from a country where a temperance ethos has been transformed into legalistic chaos, where public drinking is a solemn ritual conducted in stygian gloom ....
We were particularly interested in the isolated drinker, the man who sits by himself and consumes beer in the presence of other people, if our ideas on the importance of the pub as a social center are correct, a lone drinker in a social setting deserves particular attention. The solitary drinker, who drinks by himself away from other people, usually in a private dwelling or rented room, has frequently been described as a pre-alcoholic, it seems important to distinguish between a man who drinks in solitude and one who drinks alone in a setting designed to encourage sociability. The isolation of the latter is more a matter of social than physical distance. George Simreel described it this way, "The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one finds himself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city." The situation of a man drinking beer by himself in the presence of others fits Simreel's concept of isolation. It is apparent that environmental programming must do more than establish proximity to facilitate communication and friendship.
During the first study, which took place in 1962, each of Edmonton's 32 beer parlors was visited twice. The sessions covered all the open hours. We were not interested in differences between individual pubs, and there were many, particularly when one compared neighborhoods, but rather in the total picture of beer parlors in the city? The observer visited each pub at a specified hour and sat down at a table that afforded a clear view of some part of the beer parlor. The observer attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible and ordered the expected amount of beer, generally one large glass.
The Mass Observation team had found that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone and attributed this to the social pressure on a person in a group to keep up with the fastest member. At first glance this view is supported by our findings that the average number of new glasses ordered by isolated drinkers was 1.7 compared to 3.5 by group drinkers. Although it is clear that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone, the implication of this trend becomes intelligible only when we examine the time spent in the pub by each person. We found that group drinkers, on the average, spent twice as long in the pub as isolated drinkers. This made it necessary to re-examine our figures on consumption taking into account duration of stay. This comparison shows no difference in the tempo of drinking by isolated and group drinkers, People in groups drink more than people alone, not because they drink faster, but because they remain longer. The presence of companions has less effect on the tempo of drinking than on the attractiveness of the pub as a place to sit. One cautionary note is necessary: we have no way of knowing what happens to an isolated drinker when he leaves the pub. The fellow may simply go down the street to the next pub looking for the companionship that he did not find in the first place. Support for this notion comes from observation of loners who were joined by other people. Of the 29 joined isolates, 21 remained through the entire 60-minute observation period.
[Eugenia Butler decided to test the "gabby woman hypothesis" by seeing how long male and female college students remain in a college cafeteria. To her surprise, she found no difference between men and women, but there was a marked difference between students dining alone and those in groups. Students eating alone remained an average of 15 minutes, students eating with members of their own sex remained an average of 28 minutes, and students eating in mixed-sex groups remained an average of 34 minutes.]
The total amount of beer consumed, regardless of whether the person was alone or in a group, varied directly with the length of time in the pub. People who remained less than 15 minutes (during the one-hour observation period) averaged 0.4 new glasses, people who remained between 16 and 30 minutes averaged 1.1 new glasses; people who remained 31 to 45 minutes averaged 2.8 new glasses; and people who remained 46 to 60 minutes averaged 4.9 new glasses. It is hardly surprising that people who stay longer in the pub drink more, but it is of interest that the oft-described pattern of "nursing" a single beer for an indefinite period is extremely rare in the Edmonton beer parlor. Of those people who remained longer than 45 minutes, and this includes both isolated and group drinkers, every single one ordered at least one additional glass.
A limitation of this study was its use of one-hour periods, which put a ceiling on the amount of drinking possible. We therefore embarked on another study to determine how long patrons stay in the pub and relate this to their drinking. During this second study, which took place several months later, the observer arrived at a beverage room and selected as subjects those patrons who entered after he did. He was instructed to select three isolated and three group drinkers as subjects in each pub and remain as long as the subjects stayed. The median length of stay for isolated drinkers was 22 minutes, for group drinkers 54 minutes, and for joined isolates 89 minutes. Consumption of beer depended on the time a person remained in the put--the longer a person stayed, the more he drank. As before, there was no difference in tempo of drinking between isolated, group, and joined isolate drinkers. The difference in total consumption was attributable solely to the length of time a person remained in the pub.
These results do not support the idea that the social stimulation of being a part of a drinking group increases drinking tempo. It is likely that this finding is due to the unique physical environment of the Edmonton pub, particularly since the Mass Observation team reported different results in Worktown. The patrons in an English pub can play darts or skittles, read the papers, watch the birdie, or take part in heated discussions of politics that include half the men in the pub. The English pub is much smaller, more intimate, and friendlier than the large Edmonton establishments where there is nothing to do but converse (if you happen to be sitting with someone else) and drink beer. Hot meals are not available, and there are practically no other diversions--television is restricted to special events, and then only with the permission of the Provincial authorities. [Subsequent laws have changed this policy.] The lone drinker has nothing to do except drink and watch other people drink. The group drinker can talk with his tablemates and, with the stimulation from a beer, this is probably sufficient to keep him occupied. The fact that joined isolates stay longest supports the idea that the opportunity to meet others, rather than look at them (the spectator hypothesis) or the presence of beer, is what makes the pub a pleasant environment. The Spartan surroundings mean that social factors become preeminent in decisions to stay or leave. It is likely that diversions such as darts or cards would enable lone drinkers to remain longer, but we do not know how this would affect drinking. The Mass Observation team believed that these activities reduced the amount of drinking. They suggested that the high rate of arrests for drunkenness in another community, not the one they studied, occurred because the licensing authorities discouraged games and activities. The general belief among Albertans was that the Provincial government, which was known for its Fundamentalist views, reluctantly allowed drinking but attempted to make it as depressing as possible. When law and architecture conspire to inhibit sociability, a pub can be a place to buy and drink beer, but that is about all.
It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question: "What is the function of a drinking establishment?" There is reason to believe that the major function of a pub for most patrons is to provide a setting where people can come together--if not to meet at least to he with others---to maintain the social distance as the biologist Hediger uses the term. The patron may not be interacting with others, but at least he is not so far away that he has lost contact with his species, The key element here is being with other people in a particular sort of relationship, which can range from the friendliness of the neighborhood tavern to the coaction of the cocktail lounge where the availability of alcoholic beverages is an important but not always decisive element in the ongoing interaction. We can think of people's needs to consume alcoholic beverages and design efficient institutions for dispensing them (including vending machines); we can also think in terms of people's needs to be with others of their species and design settings where this is possible. In America today these two needs are filled by the same institution--the tavern. This has many implications for social problems connected with alcohol--including the 50 per cent of arrests connected in some significant way with alcohol, or the 2 per cent of drinkers who are likely to have problems handling alcohol --as well as society's attitudes toward other mind-changing drugs such as marijuana or LSD. Other countries provide specialized institutions --the opium den or the tea pad--where drugs other than alcohol may be taken legally. Our society by its legal code has made alcohol the major mind-changing agent, and this, in turn, has affected the evolution and form of the drinking establishment.
This is one reason why it is impossible to understand the physical form of the tavern, the arrangement of the furniture and the social relationships among the clientele without taking into account the laws and administrative rules surrounding alcohol consumption in our society. It is true that the design of the bathroom is influenced by building codes, union regulations, and cultural taboos but even here one does not find the detailed regulation that surrounds alcohol use. No functional approach could explain why one liquor store resembles a post office where a customer cannot touch the merchandise and another a pleasure palace. With alcohol use we deal less with a silent language than with the effects of explicit laws and restrictions.
Designed for Drinking
Liquor is an important factor in the tourist business. A Wisconsin official complained that in sparsely populated wooded areas, where liquor licenses are few, promoters are reluctant to build resorts and vacation facilities, whatever the scenic charms may be. (Landscape, Winter 1967)
If a library is designed to encourage privacy and keep people out of each other's way, taverns are designed for just the opposite purpose. Anyone who walks through the door can partake of the companionable atmosphere as well as the available beverages. Pubs are by title public houses designed for sociability. Privateness, exclusiveness, and the ability to restrict entry are at a minimum. This is not true of all drinking places, such as private clubs which do restrict entry, but it is the special characteristic of the public house as an open region that makes it interesting to us from an environmental standpoint. No one tries to find privacy in a pub. One can find amusement and commodities that will change mood and relieve anxiety, companionship, and escape from family or office. However, the relief from stress or unpleasant interpersonal contact is not the same as privacy. Nor is the atmosphere due solely to the availability of alcohol, for the same condition was characteristic of many coffee houses. Indeed the teahouses of the Orient and the coffee houses of the Middle East bear many resemblances to the American tavern. Here is a poster from an old English coffee house:
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together.
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind
But take the next seat that he can find.
The Viennese coffee house of today is described in these terms:
To many a Viennese his coffee house is his home away from home, his haven and island of tranquility, his reading room and gambling hall, his sounding board and grumbling hall. There at least he is safe from nagging wife and unruly children, monotonous radios and barking dogs, tough bosses and impatient creditors.
Cafe patrons around the world may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Furniture designer Henning Larsen was consulted by Copenhagen cafe owners whose customers lingered endlessly over coffee. Larsen developed a chair that exerts disagreeable pressure upon the spine if occupied for over a few minutes, The Larsen chair is now being marketed in New York and other cities. Hotel keepers and tavern owners have also been concerned with people being "too comfortable." This is particularly true when they occupy public space without spending money. When he took over the Waldorf Hotel, Conrad Hilton observed that the comfortable divans were occupied day after day by the same characters. Although they were correctly dressed and well-mannered, they did not spend money in the hotel. Hilton remedied the situation by moving the couches out of the lobby into the nearest food and drink area of the hotel. In planning new hotels, the policy is to "make the lounges small and the cafes big."
The same view is held by those who design airport terminals, which are perhaps the most sociofugal public spaces in American society. In most terminals it is virtually impossible for two people sitting down to converse comfortably for any length of time. The chairs are either bolted together and arranged in rows theater-style facing the ticket counters, or arranged back-to-back, and even if they face one another they are at such distances that comfortable conversation is impossible. The motive for the sociofugal arrangement appears the same as that in hotels and other commercial places--to drive people out of the waiting areas into cafes, bars, and shops where they will spend money.
[Sociofugal arrangements drive people toward the periphery of a room as contrasted to sociopetal arrangements, which fools people towards the center and thereby bring them together. See Humphrey Osmond "The Relationship Between Architect and Psychiatrist" in Psychiatric Architecture, ed. Charles Goshen, (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 1959)]
Dr. Johnson compared the public environment of a tavern with the private environment of a home where a guest cannot truly be at ease. The guest must always exert care and circumspection since the home is not his own. In the pub there is a general freedom from anxiety--any man with the money can be certain of a welcome. Paul Halmos describes the pub of this period as "the only free, non-esoteric, non-exclusive, weatherproof, meeting place for the ordinary worker." Sherri Cavan, an American sociologist whose doctor's degree was based on her visits to San Francisco bars, describes public drinking places as open regions--people who are present, whether acquainted or not, have the right to engage others in conversation and the duty to accept overtures from them. The concept was developed by Erving Goffman and goes beyond the obligation not to snub others, to the point where a person cannot be offended when someone else approaches him? A patron can still arrange to be alone, bunching himself up at the end of the bar and staring down at his drink, or sitting at a remote table facing the wall, but these positions and postures must be maintained rigorously. Even this display of a desire for separation does not guarantee privacy, since at any time some sympathetic denizen may decide to initiate psychotherapy.
Cavan contrasts the lateral arrangement at the bar with the face-to-face arrangement at tables. The boundaries between individuals in rows are unclear and easier to cross than those of people seated around a table. At the bar one finds tendencies for encounters to be more fluid and unstable. The likelihood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance between them. As a general rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over which patrons would attempt to initiate an encounter. Any more than this would require raising one's voice to a level that would annoy other patrons. Cavan describes how interaction patterns vary between mixed sex and like sex pairs. Two men conversing with an empty stool between them are likely to remain that way since a move to adjacent stools would generally bring them too close to one another. However, if a man initiates a conversation with a woman at the bar with an empty chair between them, he is likely to move over to the adjacent stool in order to prevent someone else from coming between them.
There are numerous accounts of the connection between lighting, noise level, and duration of stay. It is reported that as illumination increases so does noise level, and both will reduce the amount of time people remain inside a drinking establishment. If a restaurateur wants to capitalize on high turnover, he uses high illumination levels and doesn't worry too much about soundproofing. On the other hand, if he wants people to remain a long time he uses dim lighting and sound-absorbing surfaces such as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilings. Low illumination will permit greater intimacy between couples and thereby increase seating capacity. The findings are reasonable and accord well with studies of sensory facilitation between modalities, but they also should be systematically verified.
Neither has there been much empirical confirmation of the view that "the casual drink tastes better in pleasant surroundings. The company seems friendlier if the room is congenial, the fire bright, and the host or his servants welcoming." The influence of environment on drug effects urgently requires further study. Many of the avid believers in the psychedelic revolution insist that drugs should be taken in a setting with soft music, carpeted floors, dim lighting, and pleasant company. They attribute some proportion of "bad trips" to the unfortunate conditions under which the drugs are taken, e.g., a frightened young man alone in his apartment with the shades drawn, towels stuffed under the door, and a chair propped against the doorknob. Maslow and Mintz demonstrated that attractive surroundings would affect people's judgment of pictures and their mental outlook. Since society has seen fit to legislate the decor of the tavern, the amount of outside advertising, and whether drinks can be served to people seated or standing up, the least that is needed is some factual information on the role of tavern milieu as it affects the drinker's outlook and behavior.
Whereas many people feel that environment facilitates the mood enhancing effects of alcohol, the obverse position that alcohol will aid in the appreciation of the environment is not widely accepted. Museum directors and national park authorities, to name only two groups, are generally opposed to the consumption of alcohol on the premises. Cavan cites the ruling of the California State Park Commission that "if the intent of the winter park authority is to provide access to an area of outstanding natural beauty and outdoor recreation, sale of liquor at tile mountain station will not enhance this experience." Actually there is very little information on the way that alcohol affects aesthetic experience apart from anecdotes and moral strictures. Park authorities and museum directors object less to the effects of alcohol on the viewer's perception than on his behavior as it affects other people. Even if it were established that alcohol enhanced aesthetic experience, its role in this culture in automobile accidents and aggressive behavior might be sufficient to keep it out of culture palaces or recreation areas and confined to settings specifically designed for its use.
The physical form of the drinking establishment is as much a product of legal restrictions as economic laws and social customs. The field of tavern design reveals quickly the limitations of a purely functional approach to architectural problems. In New York City the public bar may not be the major feature of the establishment; in Saskatchewan a patron may not be served standing; in Alberta the beer parlor must close during dinner hour; public drinking places in Chicago must have an outside window that enables people outside to look in. It would be hazardous to design a drinking place without the assistance of local architects, beverage control officials, and city fathers; generally it is wise to bring them all into the act. Finding a place to drink or buying a bottle are two instances where interstate travel makes a real difference. One can eat the same food in a Holiday Inn anywhere, but he can order wine but not whiskey with his meal in one place, and in the next he must bring his own bottle and entrust to the waiter the onerous task of pouring it. Generally it is cheaper for a person to drink at home than in the local tavern. The raison d'être of the tavern goes beyond the opportunity for people to drink alcoholic beverages. This fact must be understood before one can understand the social and physical form of the tavern. A man goes to a bar to drink, to see and meet other people. It is a place to avoid boredom and existential loneliness. A bar allows for the transformation of loneliness into alienation with the availability of oblivion through alcohol.
Within the United States there are major regional and local differences in drinking places; within the same city there will be neighborhood taverns that draw their clientele from the surrounding blocks and downtown cocktail lounges that draw people from all over the city and beyond. The neighborhood pub will encourage sociability among regular patrons, but the outsider will be looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Such pubs are frequently called "locals" by regular customers. This is the situation in Ireland where each crossroads has its own cherished public house with a fiercely dedicated clientele. Frequently these are regarded as private preserves by the regulars, and the welcome mat is extended to visitors only if they are known to the regulars. An outside sign reading "Select" informs ladies to keep out. A study of neighborhood taverns in Chicago by Gottlieb showed that 83 per cent of the patrons resided within two blocks of the tavern in which they were interviewed. On the other hand it is not difficult in any American city to find examples of the bar where meaningful contact is at a minimum, V. S. Pritchett describes the lonely men in New York City sitting speechlessly on a row of barstools, with their arms triangled on the bar before a bottle of beer, their drinking money before them? If anyone speaks to his neighbor under these circumstances, he is likely to receive a suspicious stare for his efforts. The barman is interested in the patrons as customers -- he is there to sell, they are there to buy. Another visiting Englishman makes the same point when he describes the American pub as a
hoked up salon, the atmosphere is as chilly as the beer . . . when I asked a stranger to have a drink, he looked at me as if I were mad. In England if a guy's a stranger, it's automatic that each guy buys the other a drink. You enjoy each other's company, and everyone is happy.
Yet even in England the complaint has been made that
A good deal of drinking today is vertical and hurried: far too infrequently do we meet the place where you are welcome to sit comfortably round table or fire, talk and drink at your ease without a waiter hovering around, emptying the ashtrays, whipping away any empty bottles or glasses, as a mute reminder that it is about time you reordered.
Another example of an isolated environment in New York City, probably overlapping in its clientele with the lonely New York box, is the movie house showing pornographic films:
As to that audience, regardless of time of day or night, weekday or weekend, it is composed of lone men who sit passively and patiently as far as possible in a geometric mosaic worthy of ninth-century architects. It is considered bad form to sit directly behind, or behind and one seat to the side, of an earlier arrival. And, in five or six trips, I never heard a patron address a single word to another patron.
The pub owner is legally responsible for the acts of his patrons. He can lose his license if he serves people who are underage, drunk, disorderly, gambling, engaged in lewd or lascivious behavior, or who establish liaisons for such acts in his place? The liquor commissioners in Nova Scotia may "at their own discretion and for any reason they deem sufficient" suspend any license they have granted. Owners of theaters, bowling alleys, and hotels are also accountable for some acts of their patrons, but the range of offenses as well as the intensity of official scrutiny and enforcement are much more evident in drinking establishments. As one man wryly observed,
the only person who would possibly succeed as an English publican is an unusually erudite and resourceful lawyer .... Considering the number of mistakes a [publican] can make, it's astonishing that there's ever time in the law courts for dealing with other matters, like murder and income tax evasion?
Drinking establishments establish their own unique character, which will determine who will be attracted to the premises, how they will act, what they will drink, and how long they will stay. The bar that serves the young unmarried set will attract those who want to associate with young unmarried people--probably other young unmarried people. Jim Ghidella interviewed 48 patrons at "The Hut," a decrepit beer parlor in a university town, unique in that it was the only establishment there that did not attract students. The atmosphere was dingy, and the barstools were worn and patched. Almost all the patrons were white males of working class background. More than a third of those interviewed visited the establishment once or twice every day, and most of the remainder came once a week or more. Most of the regulars restricted their bar attendance to this particular place. They felt it was "an established place" which contained working people of their own age. Although four-fifths of the patrons came in alone, almost all made some contact with another person during their stay in the bar.
The sort of patron who prefers a low-key working class atmosphere does not object to drab surroundings. In fact, he prefers this to newer establishments. One cannot readily ask about the "functional environment'' of a drinking establishment without knowing the prospective clientele. Whatever is built is likely to attract those individuals adapted to the establishment. Careful choice of location, external appearance, decor, and price list will influence who the patrons will be. This illustrates a fundamental difference between the architect's and the biologist's ideas of functionalism. To a biologist a species is adapted when it fits into its surroundings--for example, when a bird beak is suitable for obtaining the sorts of seeds available in its biotope, however unusual or grotesque that beak may appear to zoo visitors. Biologists are generally concerned with things as they are, or the reasons why they developed as they did, rather than environments and organisms that do not yet exist. He is concerned with adaptation and habitat selection, whereas the architect is concerned with planning a new world.
To understand the connection between physical form, social custom, and legal regulations, I undertook a series of observations in beer parlors in Edmonton, Canada. The lowest common denominator of a Canadian beer parlor is that only beer can be purchased (by the glass or bottle), and it must be consumed on the premises. There are numerous variations of this theme, particularly in regard to the sale of food and the presence of women. Some years ago the Province of Alberta forbade men and women to sit in the same beer parlor--each hotel had two rooms, one for men and one for women. A man would escort his lady to the door of her beer parlor, make sure she found a seat, and then hasten back to the men's side, call the waiter over, and order for himself and his lady next door. The situation has improved somewhat, largely at the insistence of the hotel owners. There are still two sections in the Edmonton beer parlors, one for men and the other for ladies and escorts. If for some reason a woman wants to drink only in the presence of other women, she is out of luck. There were 32 beer parlors in Edmonton, a city of 350,000 in western Canada, in addition to about the same number of cocktail lounges, dining lounges, and private clubs. In contrast, Worktown, which was studied by the Mass Observation team, contained 304 pubs to service 175,000 people. The men's section of the Edmonton pub, which was the concern of our study, was a large open area containing tables, each surrounded by four chairs. No patron could be served standing, and singing and group games were forbidden.
A recent article describes the Canadian drinking man in these terms:
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to spot an English-Canadian tourist drinking abroad .... In a bar where everybody else is standing, the Canadian is the one sitting down. When it comes time to order another round, the Canadian is the one who compulsively drains his glass to the last drop before handing it back to the waiter. When the locals break into song, the Canadian looks ill at ease. The bright lights bother him a bit and so do all the signs exhorting him to drink this or that brew .... The reason Canadians tend to have a Pavlovian response to alcohol instead of regarding it as a relaxing pastime, must have something to do with the conditioning they receive in their native environment. They come. after all, from a country where a temperance ethos has been transformed into legalistic chaos, where public drinking is a solemn ritual conducted in stygian gloom ....
We were particularly interested in the isolated drinker, the man who sits by himself and consumes beer in the presence of other people, if our ideas on the importance of the pub as a social center are correct, a lone drinker in a social setting deserves particular attention. The solitary drinker, who drinks by himself away from other people, usually in a private dwelling or rented room, has frequently been described as a pre-alcoholic, it seems important to distinguish between a man who drinks in solitude and one who drinks alone in a setting designed to encourage sociability. The isolation of the latter is more a matter of social than physical distance. George Simreel described it this way, "The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one finds himself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city." The situation of a man drinking beer by himself in the presence of others fits Simreel's concept of isolation. It is apparent that environmental programming must do more than establish proximity to facilitate communication and friendship.
During the first study, which took place in 1962, each of Edmonton's 32 beer parlors was visited twice. The sessions covered all the open hours. We were not interested in differences between individual pubs, and there were many, particularly when one compared neighborhoods, but rather in the total picture of beer parlors in the city? The observer visited each pub at a specified hour and sat down at a table that afforded a clear view of some part of the beer parlor. The observer attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible and ordered the expected amount of beer, generally one large glass.
The Mass Observation team had found that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone and attributed this to the social pressure on a person in a group to keep up with the fastest member. At first glance this view is supported by our findings that the average number of new glasses ordered by isolated drinkers was 1.7 compared to 3.5 by group drinkers. Although it is clear that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone, the implication of this trend becomes intelligible only when we examine the time spent in the pub by each person. We found that group drinkers, on the average, spent twice as long in the pub as isolated drinkers. This made it necessary to re-examine our figures on consumption taking into account duration of stay. This comparison shows no difference in the tempo of drinking by isolated and group drinkers, People in groups drink more than people alone, not because they drink faster, but because they remain longer. The presence of companions has less effect on the tempo of drinking than on the attractiveness of the pub as a place to sit. One cautionary note is necessary: we have no way of knowing what happens to an isolated drinker when he leaves the pub. The fellow may simply go down the street to the next pub looking for the companionship that he did not find in the first place. Support for this notion comes from observation of loners who were joined by other people. Of the 29 joined isolates, 21 remained through the entire 60-minute observation period.
[Eugenia Butler decided to test the "gabby woman hypothesis" by seeing how long male and female college students remain in a college cafeteria. To her surprise, she found no difference between men and women, but there was a marked difference between students dining alone and those in groups. Students eating alone remained an average of 15 minutes, students eating with members of their own sex remained an average of 28 minutes, and students eating in mixed-sex groups remained an average of 34 minutes.]
The total amount of beer consumed, regardless of whether the person was alone or in a group, varied directly with the length of time in the pub. People who remained less than 15 minutes (during the one-hour observation period) averaged 0.4 new glasses, people who remained between 16 and 30 minutes averaged 1.1 new glasses; people who remained 31 to 45 minutes averaged 2.8 new glasses; and people who remained 46 to 60 minutes averaged 4.9 new glasses. It is hardly surprising that people who stay longer in the pub drink more, but it is of interest that the oft-described pattern of "nursing" a single beer for an indefinite period is extremely rare in the Edmonton beer parlor. Of those people who remained longer than 45 minutes, and this includes both isolated and group drinkers, every single one ordered at least one additional glass.
A limitation of this study was its use of one-hour periods, which put a ceiling on the amount of drinking possible. We therefore embarked on another study to determine how long patrons stay in the pub and relate this to their drinking. During this second study, which took place several months later, the observer arrived at a beverage room and selected as subjects those patrons who entered after he did. He was instructed to select three isolated and three group drinkers as subjects in each pub and remain as long as the subjects stayed. The median length of stay for isolated drinkers was 22 minutes, for group drinkers 54 minutes, and for joined isolates 89 minutes. Consumption of beer depended on the time a person remained in the put--the longer a person stayed, the more he drank. As before, there was no difference in tempo of drinking between isolated, group, and joined isolate drinkers. The difference in total consumption was attributable solely to the length of time a person remained in the pub.
These results do not support the idea that the social stimulation of being a part of a drinking group increases drinking tempo. It is likely that this finding is due to the unique physical environment of the Edmonton pub, particularly since the Mass Observation team reported different results in Worktown. The patrons in an English pub can play darts or skittles, read the papers, watch the birdie, or take part in heated discussions of politics that include half the men in the pub. The English pub is much smaller, more intimate, and friendlier than the large Edmonton establishments where there is nothing to do but converse (if you happen to be sitting with someone else) and drink beer. Hot meals are not available, and there are practically no other diversions--television is restricted to special events, and then only with the permission of the Provincial authorities. [Subsequent laws have changed this policy.] The lone drinker has nothing to do except drink and watch other people drink. The group drinker can talk with his tablemates and, with the stimulation from a beer, this is probably sufficient to keep him occupied. The fact that joined isolates stay longest supports the idea that the opportunity to meet others, rather than look at them (the spectator hypothesis) or the presence of beer, is what makes the pub a pleasant environment. The Spartan surroundings mean that social factors become preeminent in decisions to stay or leave. It is likely that diversions such as darts or cards would enable lone drinkers to remain longer, but we do not know how this would affect drinking. The Mass Observation team believed that these activities reduced the amount of drinking. They suggested that the high rate of arrests for drunkenness in another community, not the one they studied, occurred because the licensing authorities discouraged games and activities. The general belief among Albertans was that the Provincial government, which was known for its Fundamentalist views, reluctantly allowed drinking but attempted to make it as depressing as possible. When law and architecture conspire to inhibit sociability, a pub can be a place to buy and drink beer, but that is about all.
It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question: "What is the function of a drinking establishment?" There is reason to believe that the major function of a pub for most patrons is to provide a setting where people can come together--if not to meet at least to he with others---to maintain the social distance as the biologist Hediger uses the term. The patron may not be interacting with others, but at least he is not so far away that he has lost contact with his species, The key element here is being with other people in a particular sort of relationship, which can range from the friendliness of the neighborhood tavern to the coaction of the cocktail lounge where the availability of alcoholic beverages is an important but not always decisive element in the ongoing interaction. We can think of people's needs to consume alcoholic beverages and design efficient institutions for dispensing them (including vending machines); we can also think in terms of people's needs to be with others of their species and design settings where this is possible. In America today these two needs are filled by the same institution--the tavern. This has many implications for social problems connected with alcohol--including the 50 per cent of arrests connected in some significant way with alcohol, or the 2 per cent of drinkers who are likely to have problems handling alcohol --as well as society's attitudes toward other mind-changing drugs such as marijuana or LSD. Other countries provide specialized institutions --the opium den or the tea pad--where drugs other than alcohol may be taken legally. Our society by its legal code has made alcohol the major mind-changing agent, and this, in turn, has affected the evolution and form of the drinking establishment.
This is one reason why it is impossible to understand the physical form of the tavern, the arrangement of the furniture and the social relationships among the clientele without taking into account the laws and administrative rules surrounding alcohol consumption in our society. It is true that the design of the bathroom is influenced by building codes, union regulations, and cultural taboos but even here one does not find the detailed regulation that surrounds alcohol use. No functional approach could explain why one liquor store resembles a post office where a customer cannot touch the merchandise and another a pleasure palace. With alcohol use we deal less with a silent language than with the effects of explicit laws and restrictions.
Designed for Drinking
Liquor is an important factor in the tourist business. A Wisconsin official complained that in sparsely populated wooded areas, where liquor licenses are few, promoters are reluctant to build resorts and vacation facilities, whatever the scenic charms may be. (Landscape, Winter 1967)
If a library is designed to encourage privacy and keep people out of each other's way, taverns are designed for just the opposite purpose. Anyone who walks through the door can partake of the companionable atmosphere as well as the available beverages. Pubs are by title public houses designed for sociability. Privateness, exclusiveness, and the ability to restrict entry are at a minimum. This is not true of all drinking places, such as private clubs which do restrict entry, but it is the special characteristic of the public house as an open region that makes it interesting to us from an environmental standpoint. No one tries to find privacy in a pub. One can find amusement and commodities that will change mood and relieve anxiety, companionship, and escape from family or office. However, the relief from stress or unpleasant interpersonal contact is not the same as privacy. Nor is the atmosphere due solely to the availability of alcohol, for the same condition was characteristic of many coffee houses. Indeed the teahouses of the Orient and the coffee houses of the Middle East bear many resemblances to the American tavern. Here is a poster from an old English coffee house:
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together.
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind
But take the next seat that he can find.
The Viennese coffee house of today is described in these terms:
To many a Viennese his coffee house is his home away from home, his haven and island of tranquility, his reading room and gambling hall, his sounding board and grumbling hall. There at least he is safe from nagging wife and unruly children, monotonous radios and barking dogs, tough bosses and impatient creditors.
Cafe patrons around the world may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Furniture designer Henning Larsen was consulted by Copenhagen cafe owners whose customers lingered endlessly over coffee. Larsen developed a chair that exerts disagreeable pressure upon the spine if occupied for over a few minutes, The Larsen chair is now being marketed in New York and other cities. Hotel keepers and tavern owners have also been concerned with people being "too comfortable." This is particularly true when they occupy public space without spending money. When he took over the Waldorf Hotel, Conrad Hilton observed that the comfortable divans were occupied day after day by the same characters. Although they were correctly dressed and well-mannered, they did not spend money in the hotel. Hilton remedied the situation by moving the couches out of the lobby into the nearest food and drink area of the hotel. In planning new hotels, the policy is to "make the lounges small and the cafes big."
The same view is held by those who design airport terminals, which are perhaps the most sociofugal public spaces in American society. In most terminals it is virtually impossible for two people sitting down to converse comfortably for any length of time. The chairs are either bolted together and arranged in rows theater-style facing the ticket counters, or arranged back-to-back, and even if they face one another they are at such distances that comfortable conversation is impossible. The motive for the sociofugal arrangement appears the same as that in hotels and other commercial places--to drive people out of the waiting areas into cafes, bars, and shops where they will spend money.
[Sociofugal arrangements drive people toward the periphery of a room as contrasted to sociopetal arrangements, which fools people towards the center and thereby bring them together. See Humphrey Osmond "The Relationship Between Architect and Psychiatrist" in Psychiatric Architecture, ed. Charles Goshen, (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 1959)]
Dr. Johnson compared the public environment of a tavern with the private environment of a home where a guest cannot truly be at ease. The guest must always exert care and circumspection since the home is not his own. In the pub there is a general freedom from anxiety--any man with the money can be certain of a welcome. Paul Halmos describes the pub of this period as "the only free, non-esoteric, non-exclusive, weatherproof, meeting place for the ordinary worker." Sherri Cavan, an American sociologist whose doctor's degree was based on her visits to San Francisco bars, describes public drinking places as open regions--people who are present, whether acquainted or not, have the right to engage others in conversation and the duty to accept overtures from them. The concept was developed by Erving Goffman and goes beyond the obligation not to snub others, to the point where a person cannot be offended when someone else approaches him? A patron can still arrange to be alone, bunching himself up at the end of the bar and staring down at his drink, or sitting at a remote table facing the wall, but these positions and postures must be maintained rigorously. Even this display of a desire for separation does not guarantee privacy, since at any time some sympathetic denizen may decide to initiate psychotherapy.
Cavan contrasts the lateral arrangement at the bar with the face-to-face arrangement at tables. The boundaries between individuals in rows are unclear and easier to cross than those of people seated around a table. At the bar one finds tendencies for encounters to be more fluid and unstable. The likelihood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance between them. As a general rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over which patrons would attempt to initiate an encounter. Any more than this would require raising one's voice to a level that would annoy other patrons. Cavan describes how interaction patterns vary between mixed sex and like sex pairs. Two men conversing with an empty stool between them are likely to remain that way since a move to adjacent stools would generally bring them too close to one another. However, if a man initiates a conversation with a woman at the bar with an empty chair between them, he is likely to move over to the adjacent stool in order to prevent someone else from coming between them.
There are numerous accounts of the connection between lighting, noise level, and duration of stay. It is reported that as illumination increases so does noise level, and both will reduce the amount of time people remain inside a drinking establishment. If a restaurateur wants to capitalize on high turnover, he uses high illumination levels and doesn't worry too much about soundproofing. On the other hand, if he wants people to remain a long time he uses dim lighting and sound-absorbing surfaces such as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilings. Low illumination will permit greater intimacy between couples and thereby increase seating capacity. The findings are reasonable and accord well with studies of sensory facilitation between modalities, but they also should be systematically verified.
Neither has there been much empirical confirmation of the view that "the casual drink tastes better in pleasant surroundings. The company seems friendlier if the room is congenial, the fire bright, and the host or his servants welcoming." The influence of environment on drug effects urgently requires further study. Many of the avid believers in the psychedelic revolution insist that drugs should be taken in a setting with soft music, carpeted floors, dim lighting, and pleasant company. They attribute some proportion of "bad trips" to the unfortunate conditions under which the drugs are taken, e.g., a frightened young man alone in his apartment with the shades drawn, towels stuffed under the door, and a chair propped against the doorknob. Maslow and Mintz demonstrated that attractive surroundings would affect people's judgment of pictures and their mental outlook. Since society has seen fit to legislate the decor of the tavern, the amount of outside advertising, and whether drinks can be served to people seated or standing up, the least that is needed is some factual information on the role of tavern milieu as it affects the drinker's outlook and behavior.
Whereas many people feel that environment facilitates the mood enhancing effects of alcohol, the obverse position that alcohol will aid in the appreciation of the environment is not widely accepted. Museum directors and national park authorities, to name only two groups, are generally opposed to the consumption of alcohol on the premises. Cavan cites the ruling of the California State Park Commission that "if the intent of the winter park authority is to provide access to an area of outstanding natural beauty and outdoor recreation, sale of liquor at tile mountain station will not enhance this experience." Actually there is very little information on the way that alcohol affects aesthetic experience apart from anecdotes and moral strictures. Park authorities and museum directors object less to the effects of alcohol on the viewer's perception than on his behavior as it affects other people. Even if it were established that alcohol enhanced aesthetic experience, its role in this culture in automobile accidents and aggressive behavior might be sufficient to keep it out of culture palaces or recreation areas and confined to settings specifically designed for its use.
The physical form of the drinking establishment is as much a product of legal restrictions as economic laws and social customs. The field of tavern design reveals quickly the limitations of a purely functional approach to architectural problems. In New York City the public bar may not be the major feature of the establishment; in Saskatchewan a patron may not be served standing; in Alberta the beer parlor must close during dinner hour; public drinking places in Chicago must have an outside window that enables people outside to look in. It would be hazardous to design a drinking place without the assistance of local architects, beverage control officials, and city fathers; generally it is wise to bring them all into the act. Finding a place to drink or buying a bottle are two instances where interstate travel makes a real difference. One can eat the same food in a Holiday Inn anywhere, but he can order wine but not whiskey with his meal in one place, and in the next he must bring his own bottle and entrust to the waiter the onerous task of pouring it. Generally it is cheaper for a person to drink at home than in the local tavern. The raison d'être of the tavern goes beyond the opportunity for people to drink alcoholic beverages. This fact must be understood before one can understand the social and physical form of the tavern. A man goes to a bar to drink, to see and meet other people. It is a place to avoid boredom and existential loneliness. A bar allows for the transformation of loneliness into alienation with the availability of oblivion through alcohol.
Within the United States there are major regional and local differences in drinking places; within the same city there will be neighborhood taverns that draw their clientele from the surrounding blocks and downtown cocktail lounges that draw people from all over the city and beyond. The neighborhood pub will encourage sociability among regular patrons, but the outsider will be looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Such pubs are frequently called "locals" by regular customers. This is the situation in Ireland where each crossroads has its own cherished public house with a fiercely dedicated clientele. Frequently these are regarded as private preserves by the regulars, and the welcome mat is extended to visitors only if they are known to the regulars. An outside sign reading "Select" informs ladies to keep out. A study of neighborhood taverns in Chicago by Gottlieb showed that 83 per cent of the patrons resided within two blocks of the tavern in which they were interviewed. On the other hand it is not difficult in any American city to find examples of the bar where meaningful contact is at a minimum, V. S. Pritchett describes the lonely men in New York City sitting speechlessly on a row of barstools, with their arms triangled on the bar before a bottle of beer, their drinking money before them? If anyone speaks to his neighbor under these circumstances, he is likely to receive a suspicious stare for his efforts. The barman is interested in the patrons as customers -- he is there to sell, they are there to buy. Another visiting Englishman makes the same point when he describes the American pub as a
hoked up salon, the atmosphere is as chilly as the beer . . . when I asked a stranger to have a drink, he looked at me as if I were mad. In England if a guy's a stranger, it's automatic that each guy buys the other a drink. You enjoy each other's company, and everyone is happy.
Yet even in England the complaint has been made that
A good deal of drinking today is vertical and hurried: far too infrequently do we meet the place where you are welcome to sit comfortably round table or fire, talk and drink at your ease without a waiter hovering around, emptying the ashtrays, whipping away any empty bottles or glasses, as a mute reminder that it is about time you reordered.
Another example of an isolated environment in New York City, probably overlapping in its clientele with the lonely New York box, is the movie house showing pornographic films:
As to that audience, regardless of time of day or night, weekday or weekend, it is composed of lone men who sit passively and patiently as far as possible in a geometric mosaic worthy of ninth-century architects. It is considered bad form to sit directly behind, or behind and one seat to the side, of an earlier arrival. And, in five or six trips, I never heard a patron address a single word to another patron.
The pub owner is legally responsible for the acts of his patrons. He can lose his license if he serves people who are underage, drunk, disorderly, gambling, engaged in lewd or lascivious behavior, or who establish liaisons for such acts in his place? The liquor commissioners in Nova Scotia may "at their own discretion and for any reason they deem sufficient" suspend any license they have granted. Owners of theaters, bowling alleys, and hotels are also accountable for some acts of their patrons, but the range of offenses as well as the intensity of official scrutiny and enforcement are much more evident in drinking establishments. As one man wryly observed,
the only person who would possibly succeed as an English publican is an unusually erudite and resourceful lawyer .... Considering the number of mistakes a [publican] can make, it's astonishing that there's ever time in the law courts for dealing with other matters, like murder and income tax evasion?
Drinking establishments establish their own unique character, which will determine who will be attracted to the premises, how they will act, what they will drink, and how long they will stay. The bar that serves the young unmarried set will attract those who want to associate with young unmarried people--probably other young unmarried people. Jim Ghidella interviewed 48 patrons at "The Hut," a decrepit beer parlor in a university town, unique in that it was the only establishment there that did not attract students. The atmosphere was dingy, and the barstools were worn and patched. Almost all the patrons were white males of working class background. More than a third of those interviewed visited the establishment once or twice every day, and most of the remainder came once a week or more. Most of the regulars restricted their bar attendance to this particular place. They felt it was "an established place" which contained working people of their own age. Although four-fifths of the patrons came in alone, almost all made some contact with another person during their stay in the bar.
The sort of patron who prefers a low-key working class atmosphere does not object to drab surroundings. In fact, he prefers this to newer establishments. One cannot readily ask about the "functional environment'' of a drinking establishment without knowing the prospective clientele. Whatever is built is likely to attract those individuals adapted to the establishment. Careful choice of location, external appearance, decor, and price list will influence who the patrons will be. This illustrates a fundamental difference between the architect's and the biologist's ideas of functionalism. To a biologist a species is adapted when it fits into its surroundings--for example, when a bird beak is suitable for obtaining the sorts of seeds available in its biotope, however unusual or grotesque that beak may appear to zoo visitors. Biologists are generally concerned with things as they are, or the reasons why they developed as they did, rather than environments and organisms that do not yet exist. He is concerned with adaptation and habitat selection, whereas the architect is concerned with planning a new world.
To understand the connection between physical form, social custom, and legal regulations, I undertook a series of observations in beer parlors in Edmonton, Canada. The lowest common denominator of a Canadian beer parlor is that only beer can be purchased (by the glass or bottle), and it must be consumed on the premises. There are numerous variations of this theme, particularly in regard to the sale of food and the presence of women. Some years ago the Province of Alberta forbade men and women to sit in the same beer parlor--each hotel had two rooms, one for men and one for women. A man would escort his lady to the door of her beer parlor, make sure she found a seat, and then hasten back to the men's side, call the waiter over, and order for himself and his lady next door. The situation has improved somewhat, largely at the insistence of the hotel owners. There are still two sections in the Edmonton beer parlors, one for men and the other for ladies and escorts. If for some reason a woman wants to drink only in the presence of other women, she is out of luck. There were 32 beer parlors in Edmonton, a city of 350,000 in western Canada, in addition to about the same number of cocktail lounges, dining lounges, and private clubs. In contrast, Worktown, which was studied by the Mass Observation team, contained 304 pubs to service 175,000 people. The men's section of the Edmonton pub, which was the concern of our study, was a large open area containing tables, each surrounded by four chairs. No patron could be served standing, and singing and group games were forbidden.
A recent article describes the Canadian drinking man in these terms:
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to spot an English-Canadian tourist drinking abroad .... In a bar where everybody else is standing, the Canadian is the one sitting down. When it comes time to order another round, the Canadian is the one who compulsively drains his glass to the last drop before handing it back to the waiter. When the locals break into song, the Canadian looks ill at ease. The bright lights bother him a bit and so do all the signs exhorting him to drink this or that brew .... The reason Canadians tend to have a Pavlovian response to alcohol instead of regarding it as a relaxing pastime, must have something to do with the conditioning they receive in their native environment. They come. after all, from a country where a temperance ethos has been transformed into legalistic chaos, where public drinking is a solemn ritual conducted in stygian gloom ....
We were particularly interested in the isolated drinker, the man who sits by himself and consumes beer in the presence of other people, if our ideas on the importance of the pub as a social center are correct, a lone drinker in a social setting deserves particular attention. The solitary drinker, who drinks by himself away from other people, usually in a private dwelling or rented room, has frequently been described as a pre-alcoholic, it seems important to distinguish between a man who drinks in solitude and one who drinks alone in a setting designed to encourage sociability. The isolation of the latter is more a matter of social than physical distance. George Simreel described it this way, "The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one finds himself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city." The situation of a man drinking beer by himself in the presence of others fits Simreel's concept of isolation. It is apparent that environmental programming must do more than establish proximity to facilitate communication and friendship.
During the first study, which took place in 1962, each of Edmonton's 32 beer parlors was visited twice. The sessions covered all the open hours. We were not interested in differences between individual pubs, and there were many, particularly when one compared neighborhoods, but rather in the total picture of beer parlors in the city? The observer visited each pub at a specified hour and sat down at a table that afforded a clear view of some part of the beer parlor. The observer attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible and ordered the expected amount of beer, generally one large glass.
The Mass Observation team had found that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone and attributed this to the social pressure on a person in a group to keep up with the fastest member. At first glance this view is supported by our findings that the average number of new glasses ordered by isolated drinkers was 1.7 compared to 3.5 by group drinkers. Although it is clear that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone, the implication of this trend becomes intelligible only when we examine the time spent in the pub by each person. We found that group drinkers, on the average, spent twice as long in the pub as isolated drinkers. This made it necessary to re-examine our figures on consumption taking into account duration of stay. This comparison shows no difference in the tempo of drinking by isolated and group drinkers, People in groups drink more than people alone, not because they drink faster, but because they remain longer. The presence of companions has less effect on the tempo of drinking than on the attractiveness of the pub as a place to sit. One cautionary note is necessary: we have no way of knowing what happens to an isolated drinker when he leaves the pub. The fellow may simply go down the street to the next pub looking for the companionship that he did not find in the first place. Support for this notion comes from observation of loners who were joined by other people. Of the 29 joined isolates, 21 remained through the entire 60-minute observation period.
[Eugenia Butler decided to test the "gabby woman hypothesis" by seeing how long male and female college students remain in a college cafeteria. To her surprise, she found no difference between men and women, but there was a marked difference between students dining alone and those in groups. Students eating alone remained an average of 15 minutes, students eating with members of their own sex remained an average of 28 minutes, and students eating in mixed-sex groups remained an average of 34 minutes.]
The total amount of beer consumed, regardless of whether the person was alone or in a group, varied directly with the length of time in the pub. People who remained less than 15 minutes (during the one-hour observation period) averaged 0.4 new glasses, people who remained between 16 and 30 minutes averaged 1.1 new glasses; people who remained 31 to 45 minutes averaged 2.8 new glasses; and people who remained 46 to 60 minutes averaged 4.9 new glasses. It is hardly surprising that people who stay longer in the pub drink more, but it is of interest that the oft-described pattern of "nursing" a single beer for an indefinite period is extremely rare in the Edmonton beer parlor. Of those people who remained longer than 45 minutes, and this includes both isolated and group drinkers, every single one ordered at least one additional glass.
A limitation of this study was its use of one-hour periods, which put a ceiling on the amount of drinking possible. We therefore embarked on another study to determine how long patrons stay in the pub and relate this to their drinking. During this second study, which took place several months later, the observer arrived at a beverage room and selected as subjects those patrons who entered after he did. He was instructed to select three isolated and three group drinkers as subjects in each pub and remain as long as the subjects stayed. The median length of stay for isolated drinkers was 22 minutes, for group drinkers 54 minutes, and for joined isolates 89 minutes. Consumption of beer depended on the time a person remained in the put--the longer a person stayed, the more he drank. As before, there was no difference in tempo of drinking between isolated, group, and joined isolate drinkers. The difference in total consumption was attributable solely to the length of time a person remained in the pub.
These results do not support the idea that the social stimulation of being a part of a drinking group increases drinking tempo. It is likely that this finding is due to the unique physical environment of the Edmonton pub, particularly since the Mass Observation team reported different results in Worktown. The patrons in an English pub can play darts or skittles, read the papers, watch the birdie, or take part in heated discussions of politics that include half the men in the pub. The English pub is much smaller, more intimate, and friendlier than the large Edmonton establishments where there is nothing to do but converse (if you happen to be sitting with someone else) and drink beer. Hot meals are not available, and there are practically no other diversions--television is restricted to special events, and then only with the permission of the Provincial authorities. [Subsequent laws have changed this policy.] The lone drinker has nothing to do except drink and watch other people drink. The group drinker can talk with his tablemates and, with the stimulation from a beer, this is probably sufficient to keep him occupied. The fact that joined isolates stay longest supports the idea that the opportunity to meet others, rather than look at them (the spectator hypothesis) or the presence of beer, is what makes the pub a pleasant environment. The Spartan surroundings mean that social factors become preeminent in decisions to stay or leave. It is likely that diversions such as darts or cards would enable lone drinkers to remain longer, but we do not know how this would affect drinking. The Mass Observation team believed that these activities reduced the amount of drinking. They suggested that the high rate of arrests for drunkenness in another community, not the one they studied, occurred because the licensing authorities discouraged games and activities. The general belief among Albertans was that the Provincial government, which was known for its Fundamentalist views, reluctantly allowed drinking but attempted to make it as depressing as possible. When law and architecture conspire to inhibit sociability, a pub can be a place to buy and drink beer, but that is about all.
It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question: "What is the function of a drinking establishment?" There is reason to believe that the major function of a pub for most patrons is to provide a setting where people can come together--if not to meet at least to he with others---to maintain the social distance as the biologist Hediger uses the term. The patron may not be interacting with others, but at least he is not so far away that he has lost contact with his species, The key element here is being with other people in a particular sort of relationship, which can range from the friendliness of the neighborhood tavern to the coaction of the cocktail lounge where the availability of alcoholic beverages is an important but not always decisive element in the ongoing interaction. We can think of people's needs to consume alcoholic beverages and design efficient institutions for dispensing them (including vending machines); we can also think in terms of people's needs to be with others of their species and design settings where this is possible. In America today these two needs are filled by the same institution--the tavern. This has many implications for social problems connected with alcohol--including the 50 per cent of arrests connected in some significant way with alcohol, or the 2 per cent of drinkers who are likely to have problems handling alcohol --as well as society's attitudes toward other mind-changing drugs such as marijuana or LSD. Other countries provide specialized institutions --the opium den or the tea pad--where drugs other than alcohol may be taken legally. Our society by its legal code has made alcohol the major mind-changing agent, and this, in turn, has affected the evolution and form of the drinking establishment.
This is one reason why it is impossible to understand the physical form of the tavern, the arrangement of the furniture and the social relationships among the clientele without taking into account the laws and administrative rules surrounding alcohol consumption in our society. It is true that the design of the bathroom is influenced by building codes, union regulations, and cultural taboos but even here one does not find the detailed regulation that surrounds alcohol use. No functional approach could explain why one liquor store resembles a post office where a customer cannot touch the merchandise and another a pleasure palace. With alcohol use we deal less with a silent language than with the effects of explicit laws and restrictions.
Designed for Drinking
Liquor is an important factor in the tourist business. A Wisconsin official complained that in sparsely populated wooded areas, where liquor licenses are few, promoters are reluctant to build resorts and vacation facilities, whatever the scenic charms may be. (Landscape, Winter 1967)
If a library is designed to encourage privacy and keep people out of each other's way, taverns are designed for just the opposite purpose. Anyone who walks through the door can partake of the companionable atmosphere as well as the available beverages. Pubs are by title public houses designed for sociability. Privateness, exclusiveness, and the ability to restrict entry are at a minimum. This is not true of all drinking places, such as private clubs which do restrict entry, but it is the special characteristic of the public house as an open region that makes it interesting to us from an environmental standpoint. No one tries to find privacy in a pub. One can find amusement and commodities that will change mood and relieve anxiety, companionship, and escape from family or office. However, the relief from stress or unpleasant interpersonal contact is not the same as privacy. Nor is the atmosphere due solely to the availability of alcohol, for the same condition was characteristic of many coffee houses. Indeed the teahouses of the Orient and the coffee houses of the Middle East bear many resemblances to the American tavern. Here is a poster from an old English coffee house:
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together.
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind
But take the next seat that he can find.
The Viennese coffee house of today is described in these terms:
To many a Viennese his coffee house is his home away from home, his haven and island of tranquility, his reading room and gambling hall, his sounding board and grumbling hall. There at least he is safe from nagging wife and unruly children, monotonous radios and barking dogs, tough bosses and impatient creditors.
Cafe patrons around the world may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Furniture designer Henning Larsen was consulted by Copenhagen cafe owners whose customers lingered endlessly over coffee. Larsen developed a chair that exerts disagreeable pressure upon the spine if occupied for over a few minutes, The Larsen chair is now being marketed in New York and other cities. Hotel keepers and tavern owners have also been concerned with people being "too comfortable." This is particularly true when they occupy public space without spending money. When he took over the Waldorf Hotel, Conrad Hilton observed that the comfortable divans were occupied day after day by the same characters. Although they were correctly dressed and well-mannered, they did not spend money in the hotel. Hilton remedied the situation by moving the couches out of the lobby into the nearest food and drink area of the hotel. In planning new hotels, the policy is to "make the lounges small and the cafes big."
The same view is held by those who design airport terminals, which are perhaps the most sociofugal public spaces in American society. In most terminals it is virtually impossible for two people sitting down to converse comfortably for any length of time. The chairs are either bolted together and arranged in rows theater-style facing the ticket counters, or arranged back-to-back, and even if they face one another they are at such distances that comfortable conversation is impossible. The motive for the sociofugal arrangement appears the same as that in hotels and other commercial places--to drive people out of the waiting areas into cafes, bars, and shops where they will spend money.
[Sociofugal arrangements drive people toward the periphery of a room as contrasted to sociopetal arrangements, which fools people towards the center and thereby bring them together. See Humphrey Osmond "The Relationship Between Architect and Psychiatrist" in Psychiatric Architecture, ed. Charles Goshen, (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 1959)]
Dr. Johnson compared the public environment of a tavern with the private environment of a home where a guest cannot truly be at ease. The guest must always exert care and circumspection since the home is not his own. In the pub there is a general freedom from anxiety--any man with the money can be certain of a welcome. Paul Halmos describes the pub of this period as "the only free, non-esoteric, non-exclusive, weatherproof, meeting place for the ordinary worker." Sherri Cavan, an American sociologist whose doctor's degree was based on her visits to San Francisco bars, describes public drinking places as open regions--people who are present, whether acquainted or not, have the right to engage others in conversation and the duty to accept overtures from them. The concept was developed by Erving Goffman and goes beyond the obligation not to snub others, to the point where a person cannot be offended when someone else approaches him? A patron can still arrange to be alone, bunching himself up at the end of the bar and staring down at his drink, or sitting at a remote table facing the wall, but these positions and postures must be maintained rigorously. Even this display of a desire for separation does not guarantee privacy, since at any time some sympathetic denizen may decide to initiate psychotherapy.
Cavan contrasts the lateral arrangement at the bar with the face-to-face arrangement at tables. The boundaries between individuals in rows are unclear and easier to cross than those of people seated around a table. At the bar one finds tendencies for encounters to be more fluid and unstable. The likelihood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance between them. As a general rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over which patrons would attempt to initiate an encounter. Any more than this would require raising one's voice to a level that would annoy other patrons. Cavan describes how interaction patterns vary between mixed sex and like sex pairs. Two men conversing with an empty stool between them are likely to remain that way since a move to adjacent stools would generally bring them too close to one another. However, if a man initiates a conversation with a woman at the bar with an empty chair between them, he is likely to move over to the adjacent stool in order to prevent someone else from coming between them.
There are numerous accounts of the connection between lighting, noise level, and duration of stay. It is reported that as illumination increases so does noise level, and both will reduce the amount of time people remain inside a drinking establishment. If a restaurateur wants to capitalize on high turnover, he uses high illumination levels and doesn't worry too much about soundproofing. On the other hand, if he wants people to remain a long time he uses dim lighting and sound-absorbing surfaces such as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilings. Low illumination will permit greater intimacy between couples and thereby increase seating capacity. The findings are reasonable and accord well with studies of sensory facilitation between modalities, but they also should be systematically verified.
Neither has there been much empirical confirmation of the view that "the casual drink tastes better in pleasant surroundings. The company seems friendlier if the room is congenial, the fire bright, and the host or his servants welcoming." The influence of environment on drug effects urgently requires further study. Many of the avid believers in the psychedelic revolution insist that drugs should be taken in a setting with soft music, carpeted floors, dim lighting, and pleasant company. They attribute some proportion of "bad trips" to the unfortunate conditions under which the drugs are taken, e.g., a frightened young man alone in his apartment with the shades drawn, towels stuffed under the door, and a chair propped against the doorknob. Maslow and Mintz demonstrated that attractive surroundings would affect people's judgment of pictures and their mental outlook. Since society has seen fit to legislate the decor of the tavern, the amount of outside advertising, and whether drinks can be served to people seated or standing up, the least that is needed is some factual information on the role of tavern milieu as it affects the drinker's outlook and behavior.
Whereas many people feel that environment facilitates the mood enhancing effects of alcohol, the obverse position that alcohol will aid in the appreciation of the environment is not widely accepted. Museum directors and national park authorities, to name only two groups, are generally opposed to the consumption of alcohol on the premises. Cavan cites the ruling of the California State Park Commission that "if the intent of the winter park authority is to provide access to an area of outstanding natural beauty and outdoor recreation, sale of liquor at tile mountain station will not enhance this experience." Actually there is very little information on the way that alcohol affects aesthetic experience apart from anecdotes and moral strictures. Park authorities and museum directors object less to the effects of alcohol on the viewer's perception than on his behavior as it affects other people. Even if it were established that alcohol enhanced aesthetic experience, its role in this culture in automobile accidents and aggressive behavior might be sufficient to keep it out of culture palaces or recreation areas and confined to settings specifically designed for its use.
The physical form of the drinking establishment is as much a product of legal restrictions as economic laws and social customs. The field of tavern design reveals quickly the limitations of a purely functional approach to architectural problems. In New York City the public bar may not be the major feature of the establishment; in Saskatchewan a patron may not be served standing; in Alberta the beer parlor must close during dinner hour; public drinking places in Chicago must have an outside window that enables people outside to look in. It would be hazardous to design a drinking place without the assistance of local architects, beverage control officials, and city fathers; generally it is wise to bring them all into the act. Finding a place to drink or buying a bottle are two instances where interstate travel makes a real difference. One can eat the same food in a Holiday Inn anywhere, but he can order wine but not whiskey with his meal in one place, and in the next he must bring his own bottle and entrust to the waiter the onerous task of pouring it. Generally it is cheaper for a person to drink at home than in the local tavern. The raison d'être of the tavern goes beyond the opportunity for people to drink alcoholic beverages. This fact must be understood before one can understand the social and physical form of the tavern. A man goes to a bar to drink, to see and meet other people. It is a place to avoid boredom and existential loneliness. A bar allows for the transformation of loneliness into alienation with the availability of oblivion through alcohol.
Within the United States there are major regional and local differences in drinking places; within the same city there will be neighborhood taverns that draw their clientele from the surrounding blocks and downtown cocktail lounges that draw people from all over the city and beyond. The neighborhood pub will encourage sociability among regular patrons, but the outsider will be looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Such pubs are frequently called "locals" by regular customers. This is the situation in Ireland where each crossroads has its own cherished public house with a fiercely dedicated clientele. Frequently these are regarded as private preserves by the regulars, and the welcome mat is extended to visitors only if they are known to the regulars. An outside sign reading "Select" informs ladies to keep out. A study of neighborhood taverns in Chicago by Gottlieb showed that 83 per cent of the patrons resided within two blocks of the tavern in which they were interviewed. On the other hand it is not difficult in any American city to find examples of the bar where meaningful contact is at a minimum, V. S. Pritchett describes the lonely men in New York City sitting speechlessly on a row of barstools, with their arms triangled on the bar before a bottle of beer, their drinking money before them? If anyone speaks to his neighbor under these circumstances, he is likely to receive a suspicious stare for his efforts. The barman is interested in the patrons as customers -- he is there to sell, they are there to buy. Another visiting Englishman makes the same point when he describes the American pub as a
hoked up salon, the atmosphere is as chilly as the beer . . . when I asked a stranger to have a drink, he looked at me as if I were mad. In England if a guy's a stranger, it's automatic that each guy buys the other a drink. You enjoy each other's company, and everyone is happy.
Yet even in England the complaint has been made that
A good deal of drinking today is vertical and hurried: far too infrequently do we meet the place where you are welcome to sit comfortably round table or fire, talk and drink at your ease without a waiter hovering around, emptying the ashtrays, whipping away any empty bottles or glasses, as a mute reminder that it is about time you reordered.
Another example of an isolated environment in New York City, probably overlapping in its clientele with the lonely New York box, is the movie house showing pornographic films:
As to that audience, regardless of time of day or night, weekday or weekend, it is composed of lone men who sit passively and patiently as far as possible in a geometric mosaic worthy of ninth-century architects. It is considered bad form to sit directly behind, or behind and one seat to the side, of an earlier arrival. And, in five or six trips, I never heard a patron address a single word to another patron.
The pub owner is legally responsible for the acts of his patrons. He can lose his license if he serves people who are underage, drunk, disorderly, gambling, engaged in lewd or lascivious behavior, or who establish liaisons for such acts in his place? The liquor commissioners in Nova Scotia may "at their own discretion and for any reason they deem sufficient" suspend any license they have granted. Owners of theaters, bowling alleys, and hotels are also accountable for some acts of their patrons, but the range of offenses as well as the intensity of official scrutiny and enforcement are much more evident in drinking establishments. As one man wryly observed,
the only person who would possibly succeed as an English publican is an unusually erudite and resourceful lawyer .... Considering the number of mistakes a [publican] can make, it's astonishing that there's ever time in the law courts for dealing with other matters, like murder and income tax evasion?
Drinking establishments establish their own unique character, which will determine who will be attracted to the premises, how they will act, what they will drink, and how long they will stay. The bar that serves the young unmarried set will attract those who want to associate with young unmarried people--probably other young unmarried people. Jim Ghidella interviewed 48 patrons at "The Hut," a decrepit beer parlor in a university town, unique in that it was the only establishment there that did not attract students. The atmosphere was dingy, and the barstools were worn and patched. Almost all the patrons were white males of working class background. More than a third of those interviewed visited the establishment once or twice every day, and most of the remainder came once a week or more. Most of the regulars restricted their bar attendance to this particular place. They felt it was "an established place" which contained working people of their own age. Although four-fifths of the patrons came in alone, almost all made some contact with another person during their stay in the bar.
The sort of patron who prefers a low-key working class atmosphere does not object to drab surroundings. In fact, he prefers this to newer establishments. One cannot readily ask about the "functional environment'' of a drinking establishment without knowing the prospective clientele. Whatever is built is likely to attract those individuals adapted to the establishment. Careful choice of location, external appearance, decor, and price list will influence who the patrons will be. This illustrates a fundamental difference between the architect's and the biologist's ideas of functionalism. To a biologist a species is adapted when it fits into its surroundings--for example, when a bird beak is suitable for obtaining the sorts of seeds available in its biotope, however unusual or grotesque that beak may appear to zoo visitors. Biologists are generally concerned with things as they are, or the reasons why they developed as they did, rather than environments and organisms that do not yet exist. He is concerned with adaptation and habitat selection, whereas the architect is concerned with planning a new world.
To understand the connection between physical form, social custom, and legal regulations, I undertook a series of observations in beer parlors in Edmonton, Canada. The lowest common denominator of a Canadian beer parlor is that only beer can be purchased (by the glass or bottle), and it must be consumed on the premises. There are numerous variations of this theme, particularly in regard to the sale of food and the presence of women. Some years ago the Province of Alberta forbade men and women to sit in the same beer parlor--each hotel had two rooms, one for men and one for women. A man would escort his lady to the door of her beer parlor, make sure she found a seat, and then hasten back to the men's side, call the waiter over, and order for himself and his lady next door. The situation has improved somewhat, largely at the insistence of the hotel owners. There are still two sections in the Edmonton beer parlors, one for men and the other for ladies and escorts. If for some reason a woman wants to drink only in the presence of other women, she is out of luck. There were 32 beer parlors in Edmonton, a city of 350,000 in western Canada, in addition to about the same number of cocktail lounges, dining lounges, and private clubs. In contrast, Worktown, which was studied by the Mass Observation team, contained 304 pubs to service 175,000 people. The men's section of the Edmonton pub, which was the concern of our study, was a large open area containing tables, each surrounded by four chairs. No patron could be served standing, and singing and group games were forbidden.
A recent article describes the Canadian drinking man in these terms:
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to spot an English-Canadian tourist drinking abroad .... In a bar where everybody else is standing, the Canadian is the one sitting down. When it comes time to order another round, the Canadian is the one who compulsively drains his glass to the last drop before handing it back to the waiter. When the locals break into song, the Canadian looks ill at ease. The bright lights bother him a bit and so do all the signs exhorting him to drink this or that brew .... The reason Canadians tend to have a Pavlovian response to alcohol instead of regarding it as a relaxing pastime, must have something to do with the conditioning they receive in their native environment. They come. after all, from a country where a temperance ethos has been transformed into legalistic chaos, where public drinking is a solemn ritual conducted in stygian gloom ....
We were particularly interested in the isolated drinker, the man who sits by himself and consumes beer in the presence of other people, if our ideas on the importance of the pub as a social center are correct, a lone drinker in a social setting deserves particular attention. The solitary drinker, who drinks by himself away from other people, usually in a private dwelling or rented room, has frequently been described as a pre-alcoholic, it seems important to distinguish between a man who drinks in solitude and one who drinks alone in a setting designed to encourage sociability. The isolation of the latter is more a matter of social than physical distance. George Simreel described it this way, "The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one finds himself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city." The situation of a man drinking beer by himself in the presence of others fits Simreel's concept of isolation. It is apparent that environmental programming must do more than establish proximity to facilitate communication and friendship.
During the first study, which took place in 1962, each of Edmonton's 32 beer parlors was visited twice. The sessions covered all the open hours. We were not interested in differences between individual pubs, and there were many, particularly when one compared neighborhoods, but rather in the total picture of beer parlors in the city? The observer visited each pub at a specified hour and sat down at a table that afforded a clear view of some part of the beer parlor. The observer attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible and ordered the expected amount of beer, generally one large glass.
The Mass Observation team had found that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone and attributed this to the social pressure on a person in a group to keep up with the fastest member. At first glance this view is supported by our findings that the average number of new glasses ordered by isolated drinkers was 1.7 compared to 3.5 by group drinkers. Although it is clear that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone, the implication of this trend becomes intelligible only when we examine the time spent in the pub by each person. We found that group drinkers, on the average, spent twice as long in the pub as isolated drinkers. This made it necessary to re-examine our figures on consumption taking into account duration of stay. This comparison shows no difference in the tempo of drinking by isolated and group drinkers, People in groups drink more than people alone, not because they drink faster, but because they remain longer. The presence of companions has less effect on the tempo of drinking than on the attractiveness of the pub as a place to sit. One cautionary note is necessary: we have no way of knowing what happens to an isolated drinker when he leaves the pub. The fellow may simply go down the street to the next pub looking for the companionship that he did not find in the first place. Support for this notion comes from observation of loners who were joined by other people. Of the 29 joined isolates, 21 remained through the entire 60-minute observation period.
[Eugenia Butler decided to test the "gabby woman hypothesis" by seeing how long male and female college students remain in a college cafeteria. To her surprise, she found no difference between men and women, but there was a marked difference between students dining alone and those in groups. Students eating alone remained an average of 15 minutes, students eating with members of their own sex remained an average of 28 minutes, and students eating in mixed-sex groups remained an average of 34 minutes.]
The total amount of beer consumed, regardless of whether the person was alone or in a group, varied directly with the length of time in the pub. People who remained less than 15 minutes (during the one-hour observation period) averaged 0.4 new glasses, people who remained between 16 and 30 minutes averaged 1.1 new glasses; people who remained 31 to 45 minutes averaged 2.8 new glasses; and people who remained 46 to 60 minutes averaged 4.9 new glasses. It is hardly surprising that people who stay longer in the pub drink more, but it is of interest that the oft-described pattern of "nursing" a single beer for an indefinite period is extremely rare in the Edmonton beer parlor. Of those people who remained longer than 45 minutes, and this includes both isolated and group drinkers, every single one ordered at least one additional glass.
A limitation of this study was its use of one-hour periods, which put a ceiling on the amount of drinking possible. We therefore embarked on another study to determine how long patrons stay in the pub and relate this to their drinking. During this second study, which took place several months later, the observer arrived at a beverage room and selected as subjects those patrons who entered after he did. He was instructed to select three isolated and three group drinkers as subjects in each pub and remain as long as the subjects stayed. The median length of stay for isolated drinkers was 22 minutes, for group drinkers 54 minutes, and for joined isolates 89 minutes. Consumption of beer depended on the time a person remained in the put--the longer a person stayed, the more he drank. As before, there was no difference in tempo of drinking between isolated, group, and joined isolate drinkers. The difference in total consumption was attributable solely to the length of time a person remained in the pub.
These results do not support the idea that the social stimulation of being a part of a drinking group increases drinking tempo. It is likely that this finding is due to the unique physical environment of the Edmonton pub, particularly since the Mass Observation team reported different results in Worktown. The patrons in an English pub can play darts or skittles, read the papers, watch the birdie, or take part in heated discussions of politics that include half the men in the pub. The English pub is much smaller, more intimate, and friendlier than the large Edmonton establishments where there is nothing to do but converse (if you happen to be sitting with someone else) and drink beer. Hot meals are not available, and there are practically no other diversions--television is restricted to special events, and then only with the permission of the Provincial authorities. [Subsequent laws have changed this policy.] The lone drinker has nothing to do except drink and watch other people drink. The group drinker can talk with his tablemates and, with the stimulation from a beer, this is probably sufficient to keep him occupied. The fact that joined isolates stay longest supports the idea that the opportunity to meet others, rather than look at them (the spectator hypothesis) or the presence of beer, is what makes the pub a pleasant environment. The Spartan surroundings mean that social factors become preeminent in decisions to stay or leave. It is likely that diversions such as darts or cards would enable lone drinkers to remain longer, but we do not know how this would affect drinking. The Mass Observation team believed that these activities reduced the amount of drinking. They suggested that the high rate of arrests for drunkenness in another community, not the one they studied, occurred because the licensing authorities discouraged games and activities. The general belief among Albertans was that the Provincial government, which was known for its Fundamentalist views, reluctantly allowed drinking but attempted to make it as depressing as possible. When law and architecture conspire to inhibit sociability, a pub can be a place to buy and drink beer, but that is about all.
It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question: "What is the function of a drinking establishment?" There is reason to believe that the major function of a pub for most patrons is to provide a setting where people can come together--if not to meet at least to he with others---to maintain the social distance as the biologist Hediger uses the term. The patron may not be interacting with others, but at least he is not so far away that he has lost contact with his species, The key element here is being with other people in a particular sort of relationship, which can range from the friendliness of the neighborhood tavern to the coaction of the cocktail lounge where the availability of alcoholic beverages is an important but not always decisive element in the ongoing interaction. We can think of people's needs to consume alcoholic beverages and design efficient institutions for dispensing them (including vending machines); we can also think in terms of people's needs to be with others of their species and design settings where this is possible. In America today these two needs are filled by the same institution--the tavern. This has many implications for social problems connected with alcohol--including the 50 per cent of arrests connected in some significant way with alcohol, or the 2 per cent of drinkers who are likely to have problems handling alcohol --as well as society's attitudes toward other mind-changing drugs such as marijuana or LSD. Other countries provide specialized institutions --the opium den or the tea pad--where drugs other than alcohol may be taken legally. Our society by its legal code has made alcohol the major mind-changing agent, and this, in turn, has affected the evolution and form of the drinking establishment.
This is one reason why it is impossible to understand the physical form of the tavern, the arrangement of the furniture and the social relationships among the clientele without taking into account the laws and administrative rules surrounding alcohol consumption in our society. It is true that the design of the bathroom is influenced by building codes, union regulations, and cultural taboos but even here one does not find the detailed regulation that surrounds alcohol use. No functional approach could explain why one liquor store resembles a post office where a customer cannot touch the merchandise and another a pleasure palace. With alcohol use we deal less with a silent language than with the effects of explicit laws and restrictions.
Designed for Drinking
Liquor is an important factor in the tourist business. A Wisconsin official complained that in sparsely populated wooded areas, where liquor licenses are few, promoters are reluctant to build resorts and vacation facilities, whatever the scenic charms may be. (Landscape, Winter 1967)
If a library is designed to encourage privacy and keep people out of each other's way, taverns are designed for just the opposite purpose. Anyone who walks through the door can partake of the companionable atmosphere as well as the available beverages. Pubs are by title public houses designed for sociability. Privateness, exclusiveness, and the ability to restrict entry are at a minimum. This is not true of all drinking places, such as private clubs which do restrict entry, but it is the special characteristic of the public house as an open region that makes it interesting to us from an environmental standpoint. No one tries to find privacy in a pub. One can find amusement and commodities that will change mood and relieve anxiety, companionship, and escape from family or office. However, the relief from stress or unpleasant interpersonal contact is not the same as privacy. Nor is the atmosphere due solely to the availability of alcohol, for the same condition was characteristic of many coffee houses. Indeed the teahouses of the Orient and the coffee houses of the Middle East bear many resemblances to the American tavern. Here is a poster from an old English coffee house:
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together.
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind
But take the next seat that he can find.
The Viennese coffee house of today is described in these terms:
To many a Viennese his coffee house is his home away from home, his haven and island of tranquility, his reading room and gambling hall, his sounding board and grumbling hall. There at least he is safe from nagging wife and unruly children, monotonous radios and barking dogs, tough bosses and impatient creditors.
Cafe patrons around the world may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Furniture designer Henning Larsen was consulted by Copenhagen cafe owners whose customers lingered endlessly over coffee. Larsen developed a chair that exerts disagreeable pressure upon the spine if occupied for over a few minutes, The Larsen chair is now being marketed in New York and other cities. Hotel keepers and tavern owners have also been concerned with people being "too comfortable." This is particularly true when they occupy public space without spending money. When he took over the Waldorf Hotel, Conrad Hilton observed that the comfortable divans were occupied day after day by the same characters. Although they were correctly dressed and well-mannered, they did not spend money in the hotel. Hilton remedied the situation by moving the couches out of the lobby into the nearest food and drink area of the hotel. In planning new hotels, the policy is to "make the lounges small and the cafes big."
The same view is held by those who design airport terminals, which are perhaps the most sociofugal public spaces in American society. In most terminals it is virtually impossible for two people sitting down to converse comfortably for any length of time. The chairs are either bolted together and arranged in rows theater-style facing the ticket counters, or arranged back-to-back, and even if they face one another they are at such distances that comfortable conversation is impossible. The motive for the sociofugal arrangement appears the same as that in hotels and other commercial places--to drive people out of the waiting areas into cafes, bars, and shops where they will spend money.
[Sociofugal arrangements drive people toward the periphery of a room as contrasted to sociopetal arrangements, which fools people towards the center and thereby bring them together. See Humphrey Osmond "The Relationship Between Architect and Psychiatrist" in Psychiatric Architecture, ed. Charles Goshen, (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 1959)]
Dr. Johnson compared the public environment of a tavern with the private environment of a home where a guest cannot truly be at ease. The guest must always exert care and circumspection since the home is not his own. In the pub there is a general freedom from anxiety--any man with the money can be certain of a welcome. Paul Halmos describes the pub of this period as "the only free, non-esoteric, non-exclusive, weatherproof, meeting place for the ordinary worker." Sherri Cavan, an American sociologist whose doctor's degree was based on her visits to San Francisco bars, describes public drinking places as open regions--people who are present, whether acquainted or not, have the right to engage others in conversation and the duty to accept overtures from them. The concept was developed by Erving Goffman and goes beyond the obligation not to snub others, to the point where a person cannot be offended when someone else approaches him? A patron can still arrange to be alone, bunching himself up at the end of the bar and staring down at his drink, or sitting at a remote table facing the wall, but these positions and postures must be maintained rigorously. Even this display of a desire for separation does not guarantee privacy, since at any time some sympathetic denizen may decide to initiate psychotherapy.
Cavan contrasts the lateral arrangement at the bar with the face-to-face arrangement at tables. The boundaries between individuals in rows are unclear and easier to cross than those of people seated around a table. At the bar one finds tendencies for encounters to be more fluid and unstable. The likelihood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance between them. As a general rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over which patrons would attempt to initiate an encounter. Any more than this would require raising one's voice to a level that would annoy other patrons. Cavan describes how interaction patterns vary between mixed sex and like sex pairs. Two men conversing with an empty stool between them are likely to remain that way since a move to adjacent stools would generally bring them too close to one another. However, if a man initiates a conversation with a woman at the bar with an empty chair between them, he is likely to move over to the adjacent stool in order to prevent someone else from coming between them.
There are numerous accounts of the connection between lighting, noise level, and duration of stay. It is reported that as illumination increases so does noise level, and both will reduce the amount of time people remain inside a drinking establishment. If a restaurateur wants to capitalize on high turnover, he uses high illumination levels and doesn't worry too much about soundproofing. On the other hand, if he wants people to remain a long time he uses dim lighting and sound-absorbing surfaces such as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilings. Low illumination will permit greater intimacy between couples and thereby increase seating capacity. The findings are reasonable and accord well with studies of sensory facilitation between modalities, but they also should be systematically verified.
Neither has there been much empirical confirmation of the view that "the casual drink tastes better in pleasant surroundings. The company seems friendlier if the room is congenial, the fire bright, and the host or his servants welcoming." The influence of environment on drug effects urgently requires further study. Many of the avid believers in the psychedelic revolution insist that drugs should be taken in a setting with soft music, carpeted floors, dim lighting, and pleasant company. They attribute some proportion of "bad trips" to the unfortunate conditions under which the drugs are taken, e.g., a frightened young man alone in his apartment with the shades drawn, towels stuffed under the door, and a chair propped against the doorknob. Maslow and Mintz demonstrated that attractive surroundings would affect people's judgment of pictures and their mental outlook. Since society has seen fit to legislate the decor of the tavern, the amount of outside advertising, and whether drinks can be served to people seated or standing up, the least that is needed is some factual information on the role of tavern milieu as it affects the drinker's outlook and behavior.
Whereas many people feel that environment facilitates the mood enhancing effects of alcohol, the obverse position that alcohol will aid in the appreciation of the environment is not widely accepted. Museum directors and national park authorities, to name only two groups, are generally opposed to the consumption of alcohol on the premises. Cavan cites the ruling of the California State Park Commission that "if the intent of the winter park authority is to provide access to an area of outstanding natural beauty and outdoor recreation, sale of liquor at tile mountain station will not enhance this experience." Actually there is very little information on the way that alcohol affects aesthetic experience apart from anecdotes and moral strictures. Park authorities and museum directors object less to the effects of alcohol on the viewer's perception than on his behavior as it affects other people. Even if it were established that alcohol enhanced aesthetic experience, its role in this culture in automobile accidents and aggressive behavior might be sufficient to keep it out of culture palaces or recreation areas and confined to settings specifically designed for its use.
The physical form of the drinking establishment is as much a product of legal restrictions as economic laws and social customs. The field of tavern design reveals quickly the limitations of a purely functional approach to architectural problems. In New York City the public bar may not be the major feature of the establishment; in Saskatchewan a patron may not be served standing; in Alberta the beer parlor must close during dinner hour; public drinking places in Chicago must have an outside window that enables people outside to look in. It would be hazardous to design a drinking place without the assistance of local architects, beverage control officials, and city fathers; generally it is wise to bring them all into the act. Finding a place to drink or buying a bottle are two instances where interstate travel makes a real difference. One can eat the same food in a Holiday Inn anywhere, but he can order wine but not whiskey with his meal in one place, and in the next he must bring his own bottle and entrust to the waiter the onerous task of pouring it. Generally it is cheaper for a person to drink at home than in the local tavern. The raison d'être of the tavern goes beyond the opportunity for people to drink alcoholic beverages. This fact must be understood before one can understand the social and physical form of the tavern. A man goes to a bar to drink, to see and meet other people. It is a place to avoid boredom and existential loneliness. A bar allows for the transformation of loneliness into alienation with the availability of oblivion through alcohol.
Within the United States there are major regional and local differences in drinking places; within the same city there will be neighborhood taverns that draw their clientele from the surrounding blocks and downtown cocktail lounges that draw people from all over the city and beyond. The neighborhood pub will encourage sociability among regular patrons, but the outsider will be looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Such pubs are frequently called "locals" by regular customers. This is the situation in Ireland where each crossroads has its own cherished public house with a fiercely dedicated clientele. Frequently these are regarded as private preserves by the regulars, and the welcome mat is extended to visitors only if they are known to the regulars. An outside sign reading "Select" informs ladies to keep out. A study of neighborhood taverns in Chicago by Gottlieb showed that 83 per cent of the patrons resided within two blocks of the tavern in which they were interviewed. On the other hand it is not difficult in any American city to find examples of the bar where meaningful contact is at a minimum, V. S. Pritchett describes the lonely men in New York City sitting speechlessly on a row of barstools, with their arms triangled on the bar before a bottle of beer, their drinking money before them? If anyone speaks to his neighbor under these circumstances, he is likely to receive a suspicious stare for his efforts. The barman is interested in the patrons as customers -- he is there to sell, they are there to buy. Another visiting Englishman makes the same point when he describes the American pub as a
hoked up salon, the atmosphere is as chilly as the beer . . . when I asked a stranger to have a drink, he looked at me as if I were mad. In England if a guy's a stranger, it's automatic that each guy buys the other a drink. You enjoy each other's company, and everyone is happy.
Yet even in England the complaint has been made that
A good deal of drinking today is vertical and hurried: far too infrequently do we meet the place where you are welcome to sit comfortably round table or fire, talk and drink at your ease without a waiter hovering around, emptying the ashtrays, whipping away any empty bottles or glasses, as a mute reminder that it is about time you reordered.
Another example of an isolated environment in New York City, probably overlapping in its clientele with the lonely New York box, is the movie house showing pornographic films:
As to that audience, regardless of time of day or night, weekday or weekend, it is composed of lone men who sit passively and patiently as far as possible in a geometric mosaic worthy of ninth-century architects. It is considered bad form to sit directly behind, or behind and one seat to the side, of an earlier arrival. And, in five or six trips, I never heard a patron address a single word to another patron.
The pub owner is legally responsible for the acts of his patrons. He can lose his license if he serves people who are underage, drunk, disorderly, gambling, engaged in lewd or lascivious behavior, or who establish liaisons for such acts in his place? The liquor commissioners in Nova Scotia may "at their own discretion and for any reason they deem sufficient" suspend any license they have granted. Owners of theaters, bowling alleys, and hotels are also accountable for some acts of their patrons, but the range of offenses as well as the intensity of official scrutiny and enforcement are much more evident in drinking establishments. As one man wryly observed,
the only person who would possibly succeed as an English publican is an unusually erudite and resourceful lawyer .... Considering the number of mistakes a [publican] can make, it's astonishing that there's ever time in the law courts for dealing with other matters, like murder and income tax evasion?
Drinking establishments establish their own unique character, which will determine who will be attracted to the premises, how they will act, what they will drink, and how long they will stay. The bar that serves the young unmarried set will attract those who want to associate with young unmarried people--probably other young unmarried people. Jim Ghidella interviewed 48 patrons at "The Hut," a decrepit beer parlor in a university town, unique in that it was the only establishment there that did not attract students. The atmosphere was dingy, and the barstools were worn and patched. Almost all the patrons were white males of working class background. More than a third of those interviewed visited the establishment once or twice every day, and most of the remainder came once a week or more. Most of the regulars restricted their bar attendance to this particular place. They felt it was "an established place" which contained working people of their own age. Although four-fifths of the patrons came in alone, almost all made some contact with another person during their stay in the bar.
The sort of patron who prefers a low-key working class atmosphere does not object to drab surroundings. In fact, he prefers this to newer establishments. One cannot readily ask about the "functional environment'' of a drinking establishment without knowing the prospective clientele. Whatever is built is likely to attract those individuals adapted to the establishment. Careful choice of location, external appearance, decor, and price list will influence who the patrons will be. This illustrates a fundamental difference between the architect's and the biologist's ideas of functionalism. To a biologist a species is adapted when it fits into its surroundings--for example, when a bird beak is suitable for obtaining the sorts of seeds available in its biotope, however unusual or grotesque that beak may appear to zoo visitors. Biologists are generally concerned with things as they are, or the reasons why they developed as they did, rather than environments and organisms that do not yet exist. He is concerned with adaptation and habitat selection, whereas the architect is concerned with planning a new world.
To understand the connection between physical form, social custom, and legal regulations, I undertook a series of observations in beer parlors in Edmonton, Canada. The lowest common denominator of a Canadian beer parlor is that only beer can be purchased (by the glass or bottle), and it must be consumed on the premises. There are numerous variations of this theme, particularly in regard to the sale of food and the presence of women. Some years ago the Province of Alberta forbade men and women to sit in the same beer parlor--each hotel had two rooms, one for men and one for women. A man would escort his lady to the door of her beer parlor, make sure she found a seat, and then hasten back to the men's side, call the waiter over, and order for himself and his lady next door. The situation has improved somewhat, largely at the insistence of the hotel owners. There are still two sections in the Edmonton beer parlors, one for men and the other for ladies and escorts. If for some reason a woman wants to drink only in the presence of other women, she is out of luck. There were 32 beer parlors in Edmonton, a city of 350,000 in western Canada, in addition to about the same number of cocktail lounges, dining lounges, and private clubs. In contrast, Worktown, which was studied by the Mass Observation team, contained 304 pubs to service 175,000 people. The men's section of the Edmonton pub, which was the concern of our study, was a large open area containing tables, each surrounded by four chairs. No patron could be served standing, and singing and group games were forbidden.
A recent article describes the Canadian drinking man in these terms:
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to spot an English-Canadian tourist drinking abroad .... In a bar where everybody else is standing, the Canadian is the one sitting down. When it comes time to order another round, the Canadian is the one who compulsively drains his glass to the last drop before handing it back to the waiter. When the locals break into song, the Canadian looks ill at ease. The bright lights bother him a bit and so do all the signs exhorting him to drink this or that brew .... The reason Canadians tend to have a Pavlovian response to alcohol instead of regarding it as a relaxing pastime, must have something to do with the conditioning they receive in their native environment. They come. after all, from a country where a temperance ethos has been transformed into legalistic chaos, where public drinking is a solemn ritual conducted in stygian gloom ....
We were particularly interested in the isolated drinker, the man who sits by himself and consumes beer in the presence of other people, if our ideas on the importance of the pub as a social center are correct, a lone drinker in a social setting deserves particular attention. The solitary drinker, who drinks by himself away from other people, usually in a private dwelling or rented room, has frequently been described as a pre-alcoholic, it seems important to distinguish between a man who drinks in solitude and one who drinks alone in a setting designed to encourage sociability. The isolation of the latter is more a matter of social than physical distance. George Simreel described it this way, "The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one finds himself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city." The situation of a man drinking beer by himself in the presence of others fits Simreel's concept of isolation. It is apparent that environmental programming must do more than establish proximity to facilitate communication and friendship.
During the first study, which took place in 1962, each of Edmonton's 32 beer parlors was visited twice. The sessions covered all the open hours. We were not interested in differences between individual pubs, and there were many, particularly when one compared neighborhoods, but rather in the total picture of beer parlors in the city? The observer visited each pub at a specified hour and sat down at a table that afforded a clear view of some part of the beer parlor. The observer attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible and ordered the expected amount of beer, generally one large glass.
The Mass Observation team had found that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone and attributed this to the social pressure on a person in a group to keep up with the fastest member. At first glance this view is supported by our findings that the average number of new glasses ordered by isolated drinkers was 1.7 compared to 3.5 by group drinkers. Although it is clear that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone, the implication of this trend becomes intelligible only when we examine the time spent in the pub by each person. We found that group drinkers, on the average, spent twice as long in the pub as isolated drinkers. This made it necessary to re-examine our figures on consumption taking into account duration of stay. This comparison shows no difference in the tempo of drinking by isolated and group drinkers, People in groups drink more than people alone, not because they drink faster, but because they remain longer. The presence of companions has less effect on the tempo of drinking than on the attractiveness of the pub as a place to sit. One cautionary note is necessary: we have no way of knowing what happens to an isolated drinker when he leaves the pub. The fellow may simply go down the street to the next pub looking for the companionship that he did not find in the first place. Support for this notion comes from observation of loners who were joined by other people. Of the 29 joined isolates, 21 remained through the entire 60-minute observation period.
[Eugenia Butler decided to test the "gabby woman hypothesis" by seeing how long male and female college students remain in a college cafeteria. To her surprise, she found no difference between men and women, but there was a marked difference between students dining alone and those in groups. Students eating alone remained an average of 15 minutes, students eating with members of their own sex remained an average of 28 minutes, and students eating in mixed-sex groups remained an average of 34 minutes.]
The total amount of beer consumed, regardless of whether the person was alone or in a group, varied directly with the length of time in the pub. People who remained less than 15 minutes (during the one-hour observation period) averaged 0.4 new glasses, people who remained between 16 and 30 minutes averaged 1.1 new glasses; people who remained 31 to 45 minutes averaged 2.8 new glasses; and people who remained 46 to 60 minutes averaged 4.9 new glasses. It is hardly surprising that people who stay longer in the pub drink more, but it is of interest that the oft-described pattern of "nursing" a single beer for an indefinite period is extremely rare in the Edmonton beer parlor. Of those people who remained longer than 45 minutes, and this includes both isolated and group drinkers, every single one ordered at least one additional glass.
A limitation of this study was its use of one-hour periods, which put a ceiling on the amount of drinking possible. We therefore embarked on another study to determine how long patrons stay in the pub and relate this to their drinking. During this second study, which took place several months later, the observer arrived at a beverage room and selected as subjects those patrons who entered after he did. He was instructed to select three isolated and three group drinkers as subjects in each pub and remain as long as the subjects stayed. The median length of stay for isolated drinkers was 22 minutes, for group drinkers 54 minutes, and for joined isolates 89 minutes. Consumption of beer depended on the time a person remained in the put--the longer a person stayed, the more he drank. As before, there was no difference in tempo of drinking between isolated, group, and joined isolate drinkers. The difference in total consumption was attributable solely to the length of time a person remained in the pub.
These results do not support the idea that the social stimulation of being a part of a drinking group increases drinking tempo. It is likely that this finding is due to the unique physical environment of the Edmonton pub, particularly since the Mass Observation team reported different results in Worktown. The patrons in an English pub can play darts or skittles, read the papers, watch the birdie, or take part in heated discussions of politics that include half the men in the pub. The English pub is much smaller, more intimate, and friendlier than the large Edmonton establishments where there is nothing to do but converse (if you happen to be sitting with someone else) and drink beer. Hot meals are not available, and there are practically no other diversions--television is restricted to special events, and then only with the permission of the Provincial authorities. [Subsequent laws have changed this policy.] The lone drinker has nothing to do except drink and watch other people drink. The group drinker can talk with his tablemates and, with the stimulation from a beer, this is probably sufficient to keep him occupied. The fact that joined isolates stay longest supports the idea that the opportunity to meet others, rather than look at them (the spectator hypothesis) or the presence of beer, is what makes the pub a pleasant environment. The Spartan surroundings mean that social factors become preeminent in decisions to stay or leave. It is likely that diversions such as darts or cards would enable lone drinkers to remain longer, but we do not know how this would affect drinking. The Mass Observation team believed that these activities reduced the amount of drinking. They suggested that the high rate of arrests for drunkenness in another community, not the one they studied, occurred because the licensing authorities discouraged games and activities. The general belief among Albertans was that the Provincial government, which was known for its Fundamentalist views, reluctantly allowed drinking but attempted to make it as depressing as possible. When law and architecture conspire to inhibit sociability, a pub can be a place to buy and drink beer, but that is about all.
It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question: "What is the function of a drinking establishment?" There is reason to believe that the major function of a pub for most patrons is to provide a setting where people can come together--if not to meet at least to he with others---to maintain the social distance as the biologist Hediger uses the term. The patron may not be interacting with others, but at least he is not so far away that he has lost contact with his species, The key element here is being with other people in a particular sort of relationship, which can range from the friendliness of the neighborhood tavern to the coaction of the cocktail lounge where the availability of alcoholic beverages is an important but not always decisive element in the ongoing interaction. We can think of people's needs to consume alcoholic beverages and design efficient institutions for dispensing them (including vending machines); we can also think in terms of people's needs to be with others of their species and design settings where this is possible. In America today these two needs are filled by the same institution--the tavern. This has many implications for social problems connected with alcohol--including the 50 per cent of arrests connected in some significant way with alcohol, or the 2 per cent of drinkers who are likely to have problems handling alcohol --as well as society's attitudes toward other mind-changing drugs such as marijuana or LSD. Other countries provide specialized institutions --the opium den or the tea pad--where drugs other than alcohol may be taken legally. Our society by its legal code has made alcohol the major mind-changing agent, and this, in turn, has affected the evolution and form of the drinking establishment.
This is one reason why it is impossible to understand the physical form of the tavern, the arrangement of the furniture and the social relationships among the clientele without taking into account the laws and administrative rules surrounding alcohol consumption in our society. It is true that the design of the bathroom is influenced by building codes, union regulations, and cultural taboos but even here one does not find the detailed regulation that surrounds alcohol use. No functional approach could explain why one liquor store resembles a post office where a customer cannot touch the merchandise and another a pleasure palace. With alcohol use we deal less with a silent language than with the effects of explicit laws and restrictions.
Designed for Drinking
Liquor is an important factor in the tourist business. A Wisconsin official complained that in sparsely populated wooded areas, where liquor licenses are few, promoters are reluctant to build resorts and vacation facilities, whatever the scenic charms may be. (Landscape, Winter 1967)
If a library is designed to encourage privacy and keep people out of each other's way, taverns are designed for just the opposite purpose. Anyone who walks through the door can partake of the companionable atmosphere as well as the available beverages. Pubs are by title public houses designed for sociability. Privateness, exclusiveness, and the ability to restrict entry are at a minimum. This is not true of all drinking places, such as private clubs which do restrict entry, but it is the special characteristic of the public house as an open region that makes it interesting to us from an environmental standpoint. No one tries to find privacy in a pub. One can find amusement and commodities that will change mood and relieve anxiety, companionship, and escape from family or office. However, the relief from stress or unpleasant interpersonal contact is not the same as privacy. Nor is the atmosphere due solely to the availability of alcohol, for the same condition was characteristic of many coffee houses. Indeed the teahouses of the Orient and the coffee houses of the Middle East bear many resemblances to the American tavern. Here is a poster from an old English coffee house:
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together.
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind
But take the next seat that he can find.
The Viennese coffee house of today is described in these terms:
To many a Viennese his coffee house is his home away from home, his haven and island of tranquility, his reading room and gambling hall, his sounding board and grumbling hall. There at least he is safe from nagging wife and unruly children, monotonous radios and barking dogs, tough bosses and impatient creditors.
Cafe patrons around the world may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Furniture designer Henning Larsen was consulted by Copenhagen cafe owners whose customers lingered endlessly over coffee. Larsen developed a chair that exerts disagreeable pressure upon the spine if occupied for over a few minutes, The Larsen chair is now being marketed in New York and other cities. Hotel keepers and tavern owners have also been concerned with people being "too comfortable." This is particularly true when they occupy public space without spending money. When he took over the Waldorf Hotel, Conrad Hilton observed that the comfortable divans were occupied day after day by the same characters. Although they were correctly dressed and well-mannered, they did not spend money in the hotel. Hilton remedied the situation by moving the couches out of the lobby into the nearest food and drink area of the hotel. In planning new hotels, the policy is to "make the lounges small and the cafes big."
The same view is held by those who design airport terminals, which are perhaps the most sociofugal public spaces in American society. In most terminals it is virtually impossible for two people sitting down to converse comfortably for any length of time. The chairs are either bolted together and arranged in rows theater-style facing the ticket counters, or arranged back-to-back, and even if they face one another they are at such distances that comfortable conversation is impossible. The motive for the sociofugal arrangement appears the same as that in hotels and other commercial places--to drive people out of the waiting areas into cafes, bars, and shops where they will spend money.
[Sociofugal arrangements drive people toward the periphery of a room as contrasted to sociopetal arrangements, which fools people towards the center and thereby bring them together. See Humphrey Osmond "The Relationship Between Architect and Psychiatrist" in Psychiatric Architecture, ed. Charles Goshen, (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 1959)]
Dr. Johnson compared the public environment of a tavern with the private environment of a home where a guest cannot truly be at ease. The guest must always exert care and circumspection since the home is not his own. In the pub there is a general freedom from anxiety--any man with the money can be certain of a welcome. Paul Halmos describes the pub of this period as "the only free, non-esoteric, non-exclusive, weatherproof, meeting place for the ordinary worker." Sherri Cavan, an American sociologist whose doctor's degree was based on her visits to San Francisco bars, describes public drinking places as open regions--people who are present, whether acquainted or not, have the right to engage others in conversation and the duty to accept overtures from them. The concept was developed by Erving Goffman and goes beyond the obligation not to snub others, to the point where a person cannot be offended when someone else approaches him? A patron can still arrange to be alone, bunching himself up at the end of the bar and staring down at his drink, or sitting at a remote table facing the wall, but these positions and postures must be maintained rigorously. Even this display of a desire for separation does not guarantee privacy, since at any time some sympathetic denizen may decide to initiate psychotherapy.
Cavan contrasts the lateral arrangement at the bar with the face-to-face arrangement at tables. The boundaries between individuals in rows are unclear and easier to cross than those of people seated around a table. At the bar one finds tendencies for encounters to be more fluid and unstable. The likelihood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance between them. As a general rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over which patrons would attempt to initiate an encounter. Any more than this would require raising one's voice to a level that would annoy other patrons. Cavan describes how interaction patterns vary between mixed sex and like sex pairs. Two men conversing with an empty stool between them are likely to remain that way since a move to adjacent stools would generally bring them too close to one another. However, if a man initiates a conversation with a woman at the bar with an empty chair between them, he is likely to move over to the adjacent stool in order to prevent someone else from coming between them.
There are numerous accounts of the connection between lighting, noise level, and duration of stay. It is reported that as illumination increases so does noise level, and both will reduce the amount of time people remain inside a drinking establishment. If a restaurateur wants to capitalize on high turnover, he uses high illumination levels and doesn't worry too much about soundproofing. On the other hand, if he wants people to remain a long time he uses dim lighting and sound-absorbing surfaces such as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilings. Low illumination will permit greater intimacy between couples and thereby increase seating capacity. The findings are reasonable and accord well with studies of sensory facilitation between modalities, but they also should be systematically verified.
Neither has there been much empirical confirmation of the view that "the casual drink tastes better in pleasant surroundings. The company seems friendlier if the room is congenial, the fire bright, and the host or his servants welcoming." The influence of environment on drug effects urgently requires further study. Many of the avid believers in the psychedelic revolution insist that drugs should be taken in a setting with soft music, carpeted floors, dim lighting, and pleasant company. They attribute some proportion of "bad trips" to the unfortunate conditions under which the drugs are taken, e.g., a frightened young man alone in his apartment with the shades drawn, towels stuffed under the door, and a chair propped against the doorknob. Maslow and Mintz demonstrated that attractive surroundings would affect people's judgment of pictures and their mental outlook. Since society has seen fit to legislate the decor of the tavern, the amount of outside advertising, and whether drinks can be served to people seated or standing up, the least that is needed is some factual information on the role of tavern milieu as it affects the drinker's outlook and behavior.
Whereas many people feel that environment facilitates the mood enhancing effects of alcohol, the obverse position that alcohol will aid in the appreciation of the environment is not widely accepted. Museum directors and national park authorities, to name only two groups, are generally opposed to the consumption of alcohol on the premises. Cavan cites the ruling of the California State Park Commission that "if the intent of the winter park authority is to provide access to an area of outstanding natural beauty and outdoor recreation, sale of liquor at tile mountain station will not enhance this experience." Actually there is very little information on the way that alcohol affects aesthetic experience apart from anecdotes and moral strictures. Park authorities and museum directors object less to the effects of alcohol on the viewer's perception than on his behavior as it affects other people. Even if it were established that alcohol enhanced aesthetic experience, its role in this culture in automobile accidents and aggressive behavior might be sufficient to keep it out of culture palaces or recreation areas and confined to settings specifically designed for its use.
The physical form of the drinking establishment is as much a product of legal restrictions as economic laws and social customs. The field of tavern design reveals quickly the limitations of a purely functional approach to architectural problems. In New York City the public bar may not be the major feature of the establishment; in Saskatchewan a patron may not be served standing; in Alberta the beer parlor must close during dinner hour; public drinking places in Chicago must have an outside window that enables people outside to look in. It would be hazardous to design a drinking place without the assistance of local architects, beverage control officials, and city fathers; generally it is wise to bring them all into the act. Finding a place to drink or buying a bottle are two instances where interstate travel makes a real difference. One can eat the same food in a Holiday Inn anywhere, but he can order wine but not whiskey with his meal in one place, and in the next he must bring his own bottle and entrust to the waiter the onerous task of pouring it. Generally it is cheaper for a person to drink at home than in the local tavern. The raison d'être of the tavern goes beyond the opportunity for people to drink alcoholic beverages. This fact must be understood before one can understand the social and physical form of the tavern. A man goes to a bar to drink, to see and meet other people. It is a place to avoid boredom and existential loneliness. A bar allows for the transformation of loneliness into alienation with the availability of oblivion through alcohol.
Within the United States there are major regional and local differences in drinking places; within the same city there will be neighborhood taverns that draw their clientele from the surrounding blocks and downtown cocktail lounges that draw people from all over the city and beyond. The neighborhood pub will encourage sociability among regular patrons, but the outsider will be looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Such pubs are frequently called "locals" by regular customers. This is the situation in Ireland where each crossroads has its own cherished public house with a fiercely dedicated clientele. Frequently these are regarded as private preserves by the regulars, and the welcome mat is extended to visitors only if they are known to the regulars. An outside sign reading "Select" informs ladies to keep out. A study of neighborhood taverns in Chicago by Gottlieb showed that 83 per cent of the patrons resided within two blocks of the tavern in which they were interviewed. On the other hand it is not difficult in any American city to find examples of the bar where meaningful contact is at a minimum, V. S. Pritchett describes the lonely men in New York City sitting speechlessly on a row of barstools, with their arms triangled on the bar before a bottle of beer, their drinking money before them? If anyone speaks to his neighbor under these circumstances, he is likely to receive a suspicious stare for his efforts. The barman is interested in the patrons as customers -- he is there to sell, they are there to buy. Another visiting Englishman makes the same point when he describes the American pub as a
hoked up salon, the atmosphere is as chilly as the beer . . . when I asked a stranger to have a drink, he looked at me as if I were mad. In England if a guy's a stranger, it's automatic that each guy buys the other a drink. You enjoy each other's company, and everyone is happy.
Yet even in England the complaint has been made that
A good deal of drinking today is vertical and hurried: far too infrequently do we meet the place where you are welcome to sit comfortably round table or fire, talk and drink at your ease without a waiter hovering around, emptying the ashtrays, whipping away any empty bottles or glasses, as a mute reminder that it is about time you reordered.
Another example of an isolated environment in New York City, probably overlapping in its clientele with the lonely New York box, is the movie house showing pornographic films:
As to that audience, regardless of time of day or night, weekday or weekend, it is composed of lone men who sit passively and patiently as far as possible in a geometric mosaic worthy of ninth-century architects. It is considered bad form to sit directly behind, or behind and one seat to the side, of an earlier arrival. And, in five or six trips, I never heard a patron address a single word to another patron.
The pub owner is legally responsible for the acts of his patrons. He can lose his license if he serves people who are underage, drunk, disorderly, gambling, engaged in lewd or lascivious behavior, or who establish liaisons for such acts in his place? The liquor commissioners in Nova Scotia may "at their own discretion and for any reason they deem sufficient" suspend any license they have granted. Owners of theaters, bowling alleys, and hotels are also accountable for some acts of their patrons, but the range of offenses as well as the intensity of official scrutiny and enforcement are much more evident in drinking establishments. As one man wryly observed,
the only person who would possibly succeed as an English publican is an unusually erudite and resourceful lawyer .... Considering the number of mistakes a [publican] can make, it's astonishing that there's ever time in the law courts for dealing with other matters, like murder and income tax evasion?
Drinking establishments establish their own unique character, which will determine who will be attracted to the premises, how they will act, what they will drink, and how long they will stay. The bar that serves the young unmarried set will attract those who want to associate with young unmarried people--probably other young unmarried people. Jim Ghidella interviewed 48 patrons at "The Hut," a decrepit beer parlor in a university town, unique in that it was the only establishment there that did not attract students. The atmosphere was dingy, and the barstools were worn and patched. Almost all the patrons were white males of working class background. More than a third of those interviewed visited the establishment once or twice every day, and most of the remainder came once a week or more. Most of the regulars restricted their bar attendance to this particular place. They felt it was "an established place" which contained working people of their own age. Although four-fifths of the patrons came in alone, almost all made some contact with another person during their stay in the bar.
The sort of patron who prefers a low-key working class atmosphere does not object to drab surroundings. In fact, he prefers this to newer establishments. One cannot readily ask about the "functional environment'' of a drinking establishment without knowing the prospective clientele. Whatever is built is likely to attract those individuals adapted to the establishment. Careful choice of location, external appearance, decor, and price list will influence who the patrons will be. This illustrates a fundamental difference between the architect's and the biologist's ideas of functionalism. To a biologist a species is adapted when it fits into its surroundings--for example, when a bird beak is suitable for obtaining the sorts of seeds available in its biotope, however unusual or grotesque that beak may appear to zoo visitors. Biologists are generally concerned with things as they are, or the reasons why they developed as they did, rather than environments and organisms that do not yet exist. He is concerned with adaptation and habitat selection, whereas the architect is concerned with planning a new world.
To understand the connection between physical form, social custom, and legal regulations, I undertook a series of observations in beer parlors in Edmonton, Canada. The lowest common denominator of a Canadian beer parlor is that only beer can be purchased (by the glass or bottle), and it must be consumed on the premises. There are numerous variations of this theme, particularly in regard to the sale of food and the presence of women. Some years ago the Province of Alberta forbade men and women to sit in the same beer parlor--each hotel had two rooms, one for men and one for women. A man would escort his lady to the door of her beer parlor, make sure she found a seat, and then hasten back to the men's side, call the waiter over, and order for himself and his lady next door. The situation has improved somewhat, largely at the insistence of the hotel owners. There are still two sections in the Edmonton beer parlors, one for men and the other for ladies and escorts. If for some reason a woman wants to drink only in the presence of other women, she is out of luck. There were 32 beer parlors in Edmonton, a city of 350,000 in western Canada, in addition to about the same number of cocktail lounges, dining lounges, and private clubs. In contrast, Worktown, which was studied by the Mass Observation team, contained 304 pubs to service 175,000 people. The men's section of the Edmonton pub, which was the concern of our study, was a large open area containing tables, each surrounded by four chairs. No patron could be served standing, and singing and group games were forbidden.
A recent article describes the Canadian drinking man in these terms:
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to spot an English-Canadian tourist drinking abroad .... In a bar where everybody else is standing, the Canadian is the one sitting down. When it comes time to order another round, the Canadian is the one who compulsively drains his glass to the last drop before handing it back to the waiter. When the locals break into song, the Canadian looks ill at ease. The bright lights bother him a bit and so do all the signs exhorting him to drink this or that brew .... The reason Canadians tend to have a Pavlovian response to alcohol instead of regarding it as a relaxing pastime, must have something to do with the conditioning they receive in their native environment. They come. after all, from a country where a temperance ethos has been transformed into legalistic chaos, where public drinking is a solemn ritual conducted in stygian gloom ....
We were particularly interested in the isolated drinker, the man who sits by himself and consumes beer in the presence of other people, if our ideas on the importance of the pub as a social center are correct, a lone drinker in a social setting deserves particular attention. The solitary drinker, who drinks by himself away from other people, usually in a private dwelling or rented room, has frequently been described as a pre-alcoholic, it seems important to distinguish between a man who drinks in solitude and one who drinks alone in a setting designed to encourage sociability. The isolation of the latter is more a matter of social than physical distance. George Simreel described it this way, "The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one finds himself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city." The situation of a man drinking beer by himself in the presence of others fits Simreel's concept of isolation. It is apparent that environmental programming must do more than establish proximity to facilitate communication and friendship.
During the first study, which took place in 1962, each of Edmonton's 32 beer parlors was visited twice. The sessions covered all the open hours. We were not interested in differences between individual pubs, and there were many, particularly when one compared neighborhoods, but rather in the total picture of beer parlors in the city? The observer visited each pub at a specified hour and sat down at a table that afforded a clear view of some part of the beer parlor. The observer attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible and ordered the expected amount of beer, generally one large glass.
The Mass Observation team had found that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone and attributed this to the social pressure on a person in a group to keep up with the fastest member. At first glance this view is supported by our findings that the average number of new glasses ordered by isolated drinkers was 1.7 compared to 3.5 by group drinkers. Although it is clear that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone, the implication of this trend becomes intelligible only when we examine the time spent in the pub by each person. We found that group drinkers, on the average, spent twice as long in the pub as isolated drinkers. This made it necessary to re-examine our figures on consumption taking into account duration of stay. This comparison shows no difference in the tempo of drinking by isolated and group drinkers, People in groups drink more than people alone, not because they drink faster, but because they remain longer. The presence of companions has less effect on the tempo of drinking than on the attractiveness of the pub as a place to sit. One cautionary note is necessary: we have no way of knowing what happens to an isolated drinker when he leaves the pub. The fellow may simply go down the street to the next pub looking for the companionship that he did not find in the first place. Support for this notion comes from observation of loners who were joined by other people. Of the 29 joined isolates, 21 remained through the entire 60-minute observation period.
[Eugenia Butler decided to test the "gabby woman hypothesis" by seeing how long male and female college students remain in a college cafeteria. To her surprise, she found no difference between men and women, but there was a marked difference between students dining alone and those in groups. Students eating alone remained an average of 15 minutes, students eating with members of their own sex remained an average of 28 minutes, and students eating in mixed-sex groups remained an average of 34 minutes.]
The total amount of beer consumed, regardless of whether the person was alone or in a group, varied directly with the length of time in the pub. People who remained less than 15 minutes (during the one-hour observation period) averaged 0.4 new glasses, people who remained between 16 and 30 minutes averaged 1.1 new glasses; people who remained 31 to 45 minutes averaged 2.8 new glasses; and people who remained 46 to 60 minutes averaged 4.9 new glasses. It is hardly surprising that people who stay longer in the pub drink more, but it is of interest that the oft-described pattern of "nursing" a single beer for an indefinite period is extremely rare in the Edmonton beer parlor. Of those people who remained longer than 45 minutes, and this includes both isolated and group drinkers, every single one ordered at least one additional glass.
A limitation of this study was its use of one-hour periods, which put a ceiling on the amount of drinking possible. We therefore embarked on another study to determine how long patrons stay in the pub and relate this to their drinking. During this second study, which took place several months later, the observer arrived at a beverage room and selected as subjects those patrons who entered after he did. He was instructed to select three isolated and three group drinkers as subjects in each pub and remain as long as the subjects stayed. The median length of stay for isolated drinkers was 22 minutes, for group drinkers 54 minutes, and for joined isolates 89 minutes. Consumption of beer depended on the time a person remained in the put--the longer a person stayed, the more he drank. As before, there was no difference in tempo of drinking between isolated, group, and joined isolate drinkers. The difference in total consumption was attributable solely to the length of time a person remained in the pub.
These results do not support the idea that the social stimulation of being a part of a drinking group increases drinking tempo. It is likely that this finding is due to the unique physical environment of the Edmonton pub, particularly since the Mass Observation team reported different results in Worktown. The patrons in an English pub can play darts or skittles, read the papers, watch the birdie, or take part in heated discussions of politics that include half the men in the pub. The English pub is much smaller, more intimate, and friendlier than the large Edmonton establishments where there is nothing to do but converse (if you happen to be sitting with someone else) and drink beer. Hot meals are not available, and there are practically no other diversions--television is restricted to special events, and then only with the permission of the Provincial authorities. [Subsequent laws have changed this policy.] The lone drinker has nothing to do except drink and watch other people drink. The group drinker can talk with his tablemates and, with the stimulation from a beer, this is probably sufficient to keep him occupied. The fact that joined isolates stay longest supports the idea that the opportunity to meet others, rather than look at them (the spectator hypothesis) or the presence of beer, is what makes the pub a pleasant environment. The Spartan surroundings mean that social factors become preeminent in decisions to stay or leave. It is likely that diversions such as darts or cards would enable lone drinkers to remain longer, but we do not know how this would affect drinking. The Mass Observation team believed that these activities reduced the amount of drinking. They suggested that the high rate of arrests for drunkenness in another community, not the one they studied, occurred because the licensing authorities discouraged games and activities. The general belief among Albertans was that the Provincial government, which was known for its Fundamentalist views, reluctantly allowed drinking but attempted to make it as depressing as possible. When law and architecture conspire to inhibit sociability, a pub can be a place to buy and drink beer, but that is about all.
It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question: "What is the function of a drinking establishment?" There is reason to believe that the major function of a pub for most patrons is to provide a setting where people can come together--if not to meet at least to he with others---to maintain the social distance as the biologist Hediger uses the term. The patron may not be interacting with others, but at least he is not so far away that he has lost contact with his species, The key element here is being with other people in a particular sort of relationship, which can range from the friendliness of the neighborhood tavern to the coaction of the cocktail lounge where the availability of alcoholic beverages is an important but not always decisive element in the ongoing interaction. We can think of people's needs to consume alcoholic beverages and design efficient institutions for dispensing them (including vending machines); we can also think in terms of people's needs to be with others of their species and design settings where this is possible. In America today these two needs are filled by the same institution--the tavern. This has many implications for social problems connected with alcohol--including the 50 per cent of arrests connected in some significant way with alcohol, or the 2 per cent of drinkers who are likely to have problems handling alcohol --as well as society's attitudes toward other mind-changing drugs such as marijuana or LSD. Other countries provide specialized institutions --the opium den or the tea pad--where drugs other than alcohol may be taken legally. Our society by its legal code has made alcohol the major mind-changing agent, and this, in turn, has affected the evolution and form of the drinking establishment.
This is one reason why it is impossible to understand the physical form of the tavern, the arrangement of the furniture and the social relationships among the clientele without taking into account the laws and administrative rules surrounding alcohol consumption in our society. It is true that the design of the bathroom is influenced by building codes, union regulations, and cultural taboos but even here one does not find the detailed regulation that surrounds alcohol use. No functional approach could explain why one liquor store resembles a post office where a customer cannot touch the merchandise and another a pleasure palace. With alcohol use we deal less with a silent language than with the effects of explicit laws and restrictions.
Designed for Drinking
Liquor is an important factor in the tourist business. A Wisconsin official complained that in sparsely populated wooded areas, where liquor licenses are few, promoters are reluctant to build resorts and vacation facilities, whatever the scenic charms may be. (Landscape, Winter 1967)
If a library is designed to encourage privacy and keep people out of each other's way, taverns are designed for just the opposite purpose. Anyone who walks through the door can partake of the companionable atmosphere as well as the available beverages. Pubs are by title public houses designed for sociability. Privateness, exclusiveness, and the ability to restrict entry are at a minimum. This is not true of all drinking places, such as private clubs which do restrict entry, but it is the special characteristic of the public house as an open region that makes it interesting to us from an environmental standpoint. No one tries to find privacy in a pub. One can find amusement and commodities that will change mood and relieve anxiety, companionship, and escape from family or office. However, the relief from stress or unpleasant interpersonal contact is not the same as privacy. Nor is the atmosphere due solely to the availability of alcohol, for the same condition was characteristic of many coffee houses. Indeed the teahouses of the Orient and the coffee houses of the Middle East bear many resemblances to the American tavern. Here is a poster from an old English coffee house:
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together.
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind
But take the next seat that he can find.
The Viennese coffee house of today is described in these terms:
To many a Viennese his coffee house is his home away from home, his haven and island of tranquility, his reading room and gambling hall, his sounding board and grumbling hall. There at least he is safe from nagging wife and unruly children, monotonous radios and barking dogs, tough bosses and impatient creditors.
Cafe patrons around the world may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Furniture designer Henning Larsen was consulted by Copenhagen cafe owners whose customers lingered endlessly over coffee. Larsen developed a chair that exerts disagreeable pressure upon the spine if occupied for over a few minutes, The Larsen chair is now being marketed in New York and other cities. Hotel keepers and tavern owners have also been concerned with people being "too comfortable." This is particularly true when they occupy public space without spending money. When he took over the Waldorf Hotel, Conrad Hilton observed that the comfortable divans were occupied day after day by the same characters. Although they were correctly dressed and well-mannered, they did not spend money in the hotel. Hilton remedied the situation by moving the couches out of the lobby into the nearest food and drink area of the hotel. In planning new hotels, the policy is to "make the lounges small and the cafes big."
The same view is held by those who design airport terminals, which are perhaps the most sociofugal public spaces in American society. In most terminals it is virtually impossible for two people sitting down to converse comfortably for any length of time. The chairs are either bolted together and arranged in rows theater-style facing the ticket counters, or arranged back-to-back, and even if they face one another they are at such distances that comfortable conversation is impossible. The motive for the sociofugal arrangement appears the same as that in hotels and other commercial places--to drive people out of the waiting areas into cafes, bars, and shops where they will spend money.
[Sociofugal arrangements drive people toward the periphery of a room as contrasted to sociopetal arrangements, which fools people towards the center and thereby bring them together. See Humphrey Osmond "The Relationship Between Architect and Psychiatrist" in Psychiatric Architecture, ed. Charles Goshen, (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 1959)]
Dr. Johnson compared the public environment of a tavern with the private environment of a home where a guest cannot truly be at ease. The guest must always exert care and circumspection since the home is not his own. In the pub there is a general freedom from anxiety--any man with the money can be certain of a welcome. Paul Halmos describes the pub of this period as "the only free, non-esoteric, non-exclusive, weatherproof, meeting place for the ordinary worker." Sherri Cavan, an American sociologist whose doctor's degree was based on her visits to San Francisco bars, describes public drinking places as open regions--people who are present, whether acquainted or not, have the right to engage others in conversation and the duty to accept overtures from them. The concept was developed by Erving Goffman and goes beyond the obligation not to snub others, to the point where a person cannot be offended when someone else approaches him? A patron can still arrange to be alone, bunching himself up at the end of the bar and staring down at his drink, or sitting at a remote table facing the wall, but these positions and postures must be maintained rigorously. Even this display of a desire for separation does not guarantee privacy, since at any time some sympathetic denizen may decide to initiate psychotherapy.
Cavan contrasts the lateral arrangement at the bar with the face-to-face arrangement at tables. The boundaries between individuals in rows are unclear and easier to cross than those of people seated around a table. At the bar one finds tendencies for encounters to be more fluid and unstable. The likelihood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance between them. As a general rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over which patrons would attempt to initiate an encounter. Any more than this would require raising one's voice to a level that would annoy other patrons. Cavan describes how interaction patterns vary between mixed sex and like sex pairs. Two men conversing with an empty stool between them are likely to remain that way since a move to adjacent stools would generally bring them too close to one another. However, if a man initiates a conversation with a woman at the bar with an empty chair between them, he is likely to move over to the adjacent stool in order to prevent someone else from coming between them.
There are numerous accounts of the connection between lighting, noise level, and duration of stay. It is reported that as illumination increases so does noise level, and both will reduce the amount of time people remain inside a drinking establishment. If a restaurateur wants to capitalize on high turnover, he uses high illumination levels and doesn't worry too much about soundproofing. On the other hand, if he wants people to remain a long time he uses dim lighting and sound-absorbing surfaces such as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilings. Low illumination will permit greater intimacy between couples and thereby increase seating capacity. The findings are reasonable and accord well with studies of sensory facilitation between modalities, but they also should be systematically verified.
Neither has there been much empirical confirmation of the view that "the casual drink tastes better in pleasant surroundings. The company seems friendlier if the room is congenial, the fire bright, and the host or his servants welcoming." The influence of environment on drug effects urgently requires further study. Many of the avid believers in the psychedelic revolution insist that drugs should be taken in a setting with soft music, carpeted floors, dim lighting, and pleasant company. They attribute some proportion of "bad trips" to the unfortunate conditions under which the drugs are taken, e.g., a frightened young man alone in his apartment with the shades drawn, towels stuffed under the door, and a chair propped against the doorknob. Maslow and Mintz demonstrated that attractive surroundings would affect people's judgment of pictures and their mental outlook. Since society has seen fit to legislate the decor of the tavern, the amount of outside advertising, and whether drinks can be served to people seated or standing up, the least that is needed is some factual information on the role of tavern milieu as it affects the drinker's outlook and behavior.
Whereas many people feel that environment facilitates the mood enhancing effects of alcohol, the obverse position that alcohol will aid in the appreciation of the environment is not widely accepted. Museum directors and national park authorities, to name only two groups, are generally opposed to the consumption of alcohol on the premises. Cavan cites the ruling of the California State Park Commission that "if the intent of the winter park authority is to provide access to an area of outstanding natural beauty and outdoor recreation, sale of liquor at tile mountain station will not enhance this experience." Actually there is very little information on the way that alcohol affects aesthetic experience apart from anecdotes and moral strictures. Park authorities and museum directors object less to the effects of alcohol on the viewer's perception than on his behavior as it affects other people. Even if it were established that alcohol enhanced aesthetic experience, its role in this culture in automobile accidents and aggressive behavior might be sufficient to keep it out of culture palaces or recreation areas and confined to settings specifically designed for its use.
The physical form of the drinking establishment is as much a product of legal restrictions as economic laws and social customs. The field of tavern design reveals quickly the limitations of a purely functional approach to architectural problems. In New York City the public bar may not be the major feature of the establishment; in Saskatchewan a patron may not be served standing; in Alberta the beer parlor must close during dinner hour; public drinking places in Chicago must have an outside window that enables people outside to look in. It would be hazardous to design a drinking place without the assistance of local architects, beverage control officials, and city fathers; generally it is wise to bring them all into the act. Finding a place to drink or buying a bottle are two instances where interstate travel makes a real difference. One can eat the same food in a Holiday Inn anywhere, but he can order wine but not whiskey with his meal in one place, and in the next he must bring his own bottle and entrust to the waiter the onerous task of pouring it. Generally it is cheaper for a person to drink at home than in the local tavern. The raison d'être of the tavern goes beyond the opportunity for people to drink alcoholic beverages. This fact must be understood before one can understand the social and physical form of the tavern. A man goes to a bar to drink, to see and meet other people. It is a place to avoid boredom and existential loneliness. A bar allows for the transformation of loneliness into alienation with the availability of oblivion through alcohol.
Within the United States there are major regional and local differences in drinking places; within the same city there will be neighborhood taverns that draw their clientele from the surrounding blocks and downtown cocktail lounges that draw people from all over the city and beyond. The neighborhood pub will encourage sociability among regular patrons, but the outsider will be looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Such pubs are frequently called "locals" by regular customers. This is the situation in Ireland where each crossroads has its own cherished public house with a fiercely dedicated clientele. Frequently these are regarded as private preserves by the regulars, and the welcome mat is extended to visitors only if they are known to the regulars. An outside sign reading "Select" informs ladies to keep out. A study of neighborhood taverns in Chicago by Gottlieb showed that 83 per cent of the patrons resided within two blocks of the tavern in which they were interviewed. On the other hand it is not difficult in any American city to find examples of the bar where meaningful contact is at a minimum, V. S. Pritchett describes the lonely men in New York City sitting speechlessly on a row of barstools, with their arms triangled on the bar before a bottle of beer, their drinking money before them? If anyone speaks to his neighbor under these circumstances, he is likely to receive a suspicious stare for his efforts. The barman is interested in the patrons as customers -- he is there to sell, they are there to buy. Another visiting Englishman makes the same point when he describes the American pub as a
hoked up salon, the atmosphere is as chilly as the beer . . . when I asked a stranger to have a drink, he looked at me as if I were mad. In England if a guy's a stranger, it's automatic that each guy buys the other a drink. You enjoy each other's company, and everyone is happy.
Yet even in England the complaint has been made that
A good deal of drinking today is vertical and hurried: far too infrequently do we meet the place where you are welcome to sit comfortably round table or fire, talk and drink at your ease without a waiter hovering around, emptying the ashtrays, whipping away any empty bottles or glasses, as a mute reminder that it is about time you reordered.
Another example of an isolated environment in New York City, probably overlapping in its clientele with the lonely New York box, is the movie house showing pornographic films:
As to that audience, regardless of time of day or night, weekday or weekend, it is composed of lone men who sit passively and patiently as far as possible in a geometric mosaic worthy of ninth-century architects. It is considered bad form to sit directly behind, or behind and one seat to the side, of an earlier arrival. And, in five or six trips, I never heard a patron address a single word to another patron.
The pub owner is legally responsible for the acts of his patrons. He can lose his license if he serves people who are underage, drunk, disorderly, gambling, engaged in lewd or lascivious behavior, or who establish liaisons for such acts in his place? The liquor commissioners in Nova Scotia may "at their own discretion and for any reason they deem sufficient" suspend any license they have granted. Owners of theaters, bowling alleys, and hotels are also accountable for some acts of their patrons, but the range of offenses as well as the intensity of official scrutiny and enforcement are much more evident in drinking establishments. As one man wryly observed,
the only person who would possibly succeed as an English publican is an unusually erudite and resourceful lawyer .... Considering the number of mistakes a [publican] can make, it's astonishing that there's ever time in the law courts for dealing with other matters, like murder and income tax evasion?
Drinking establishments establish their own unique character, which will determine who will be attracted to the premises, how they will act, what they will drink, and how long they will stay. The bar that serves the young unmarried set will attract those who want to associate with young unmarried people--probably other young unmarried people. Jim Ghidella interviewed 48 patrons at "The Hut," a decrepit beer parlor in a university town, unique in that it was the only establishment there that did not attract students. The atmosphere was dingy, and the barstools were worn and patched. Almost all the patrons were white males of working class background. More than a third of those interviewed visited the establishment once or twice every day, and most of the remainder came once a week or more. Most of the regulars restricted their bar attendance to this particular place. They felt it was "an established place" which contained working people of their own age. Although four-fifths of the patrons came in alone, almost all made some contact with another person during their stay in the bar.
The sort of patron who prefers a low-key working class atmosphere does not object to drab surroundings. In fact, he prefers this to newer establishments. One cannot readily ask about the "functional environment'' of a drinking establishment without knowing the prospective clientele. Whatever is built is likely to attract those individuals adapted to the establishment. Careful choice of location, external appearance, decor, and price list will influence who the patrons will be. This illustrates a fundamental difference between the architect's and the biologist's ideas of functionalism. To a biologist a species is adapted when it fits into its surroundings--for example, when a bird beak is suitable for obtaining the sorts of seeds available in its biotope, however unusual or grotesque that beak may appear to zoo visitors. Biologists are generally concerned with things as they are, or the reasons why they developed as they did, rather than environments and organisms that do not yet exist. He is concerned with adaptation and habitat selection, whereas the architect is concerned with planning a new world.
To understand the connection between physical form, social custom, and legal regulations, I undertook a series of observations in beer parlors in Edmonton, Canada. The lowest common denominator of a Canadian beer parlor is that only beer can be purchased (by the glass or bottle), and it must be consumed on the premises. There are numerous variations of this theme, particularly in regard to the sale of food and the presence of women. Some years ago the Province of Alberta forbade men and women to sit in the same beer parlor--each hotel had two rooms, one for men and one for women. A man would escort his lady to the door of her beer parlor, make sure she found a seat, and then hasten back to the men's side, call the waiter over, and order for himself and his lady next door. The situation has improved somewhat, largely at the insistence of the hotel owners. There are still two sections in the Edmonton beer parlors, one for men and the other for ladies and escorts. If for some reason a woman wants to drink only in the presence of other women, she is out of luck. There were 32 beer parlors in Edmonton, a city of 350,000 in western Canada, in addition to about the same number of cocktail lounges, dining lounges, and private clubs. In contrast, Worktown, which was studied by the Mass Observation team, contained 304 pubs to service 175,000 people. The men's section of the Edmonton pub, which was the concern of our study, was a large open area containing tables, each surrounded by four chairs. No patron could be served standing, and singing and group games were forbidden.
A recent article describes the Canadian drinking man in these terms:
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to spot an English-Canadian tourist drinking abroad .... In a bar where everybody else is standing, the Canadian is the one sitting down. When it comes time to order another round, the Canadian is the one who compulsively drains his glass to the last drop before handing it back to the waiter. When the locals break into song, the Canadian looks ill at ease. The bright lights bother him a bit and so do all the signs exhorting him to drink this or that brew .... The reason Canadians tend to have a Pavlovian response to alcohol instead of regarding it as a relaxing pastime, must have something to do with the conditioning they receive in their native environment. They come. after all, from a country where a temperance ethos has been transformed into legalistic chaos, where public drinking is a solemn ritual conducted in stygian gloom ....
We were particularly interested in the isolated drinker, the man who sits by himself and consumes beer in the presence of other people, if our ideas on the importance of the pub as a social center are correct, a lone drinker in a social setting deserves particular attention. The solitary drinker, who drinks by himself away from other people, usually in a private dwelling or rented room, has frequently been described as a pre-alcoholic, it seems important to distinguish between a man who drinks in solitude and one who drinks alone in a setting designed to encourage sociability. The isolation of the latter is more a matter of social than physical distance. George Simreel described it this way, "The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one finds himself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city." The situation of a man drinking beer by himself in the presence of others fits Simreel's concept of isolation. It is apparent that environmental programming must do more than establish proximity to facilitate communication and friendship.
During the first study, which took place in 1962, each of Edmonton's 32 beer parlors was visited twice. The sessions covered all the open hours. We were not interested in differences between individual pubs, and there were many, particularly when one compared neighborhoods, but rather in the total picture of beer parlors in the city? The observer visited each pub at a specified hour and sat down at a table that afforded a clear view of some part of the beer parlor. The observer attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible and ordered the expected amount of beer, generally one large glass.
The Mass Observation team had found that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone and attributed this to the social pressure on a person in a group to keep up with the fastest member. At first glance this view is supported by our findings that the average number of new glasses ordered by isolated drinkers was 1.7 compared to 3.5 by group drinkers. Although it is clear that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone, the implication of this trend becomes intelligible only when we examine the time spent in the pub by each person. We found that group drinkers, on the average, spent twice as long in the pub as isolated drinkers. This made it necessary to re-examine our figures on consumption taking into account duration of stay. This comparison shows no difference in the tempo of drinking by isolated and group drinkers, People in groups drink more than people alone, not because they drink faster, but because they remain longer. The presence of companions has less effect on the tempo of drinking than on the attractiveness of the pub as a place to sit. One cautionary note is necessary: we have no way of knowing what happens to an isolated drinker when he leaves the pub. The fellow may simply go down the street to the next pub looking for the companionship that he did not find in the first place. Support for this notion comes from observation of loners who were joined by other people. Of the 29 joined isolates, 21 remained through the entire 60-minute observation period.
[Eugenia Butler decided to test the "gabby woman hypothesis" by seeing how long male and female college students remain in a college cafeteria. To her surprise, she found no difference between men and women, but there was a marked difference between students dining alone and those in groups. Students eating alone remained an average of 15 minutes, students eating with members of their own sex remained an average of 28 minutes, and students eating in mixed-sex groups remained an average of 34 minutes.]
The total amount of beer consumed, regardless of whether the person was alone or in a group, varied directly with the length of time in the pub. People who remained less than 15 minutes (during the one-hour observation period) averaged 0.4 new glasses, people who remained between 16 and 30 minutes averaged 1.1 new glasses; people who remained 31 to 45 minutes averaged 2.8 new glasses; and people who remained 46 to 60 minutes averaged 4.9 new glasses. It is hardly surprising that people who stay longer in the pub drink more, but it is of interest that the oft-described pattern of "nursing" a single beer for an indefinite period is extremely rare in the Edmonton beer parlor. Of those people who remained longer than 45 minutes, and this includes both isolated and group drinkers, every single one ordered at least one additional glass.
A limitation of this study was its use of one-hour periods, which put a ceiling on the amount of drinking possible. We therefore embarked on another study to determine how long patrons stay in the pub and relate this to their drinking. During this second study, which took place several months later, the observer arrived at a beverage room and selected as subjects those patrons who entered after he did. He was instructed to select three isolated and three group drinkers as subjects in each pub and remain as long as the subjects stayed. The median length of stay for isolated drinkers was 22 minutes, for group drinkers 54 minutes, and for joined isolates 89 minutes. Consumption of beer depended on the time a person remained in the put--the longer a person stayed, the more he drank. As before, there was no difference in tempo of drinking between isolated, group, and joined isolate drinkers. The difference in total consumption was attributable solely to the length of time a person remained in the pub.
These results do not support the idea that the social stimulation of being a part of a drinking group increases drinking tempo. It is likely that this finding is due to the unique physical environment of the Edmonton pub, particularly since the Mass Observation team reported different results in Worktown. The patrons in an English pub can play darts or skittles, read the papers, watch the birdie, or take part in heated discussions of politics that include half the men in the pub. The English pub is much smaller, more intimate, and friendlier than the large Edmonton establishments where there is nothing to do but converse (if you happen to be sitting with someone else) and drink beer. Hot meals are not available, and there are practically no other diversions--television is restricted to special events, and then only with the permission of the Provincial authorities. [Subsequent laws have changed this policy.] The lone drinker has nothing to do except drink and watch other people drink. The group drinker can talk with his tablemates and, with the stimulation from a beer, this is probably sufficient to keep him occupied. The fact that joined isolates stay longest supports the idea that the opportunity to meet others, rather than look at them (the spectator hypothesis) or the presence of beer, is what makes the pub a pleasant environment. The Spartan surroundings mean that social factors become preeminent in decisions to stay or leave. It is likely that diversions such as darts or cards would enable lone drinkers to remain longer, but we do not know how this would affect drinking. The Mass Observation team believed that these activities reduced the amount of drinking. They suggested that the high rate of arrests for drunkenness in another community, not the one they studied, occurred because the licensing authorities discouraged games and activities. The general belief among Albertans was that the Provincial government, which was known for its Fundamentalist views, reluctantly allowed drinking but attempted to make it as depressing as possible. When law and architecture conspire to inhibit sociability, a pub can be a place to buy and drink beer, but that is about all.
It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question: "What is the function of a drinking establishment?" There is reason to believe that the major function of a pub for most patrons is to provide a setting where people can come together--if not to meet at least to he with others---to maintain the social distance as the biologist Hediger uses the term. The patron may not be interacting with others, but at least he is not so far away that he has lost contact with his species, The key element here is being with other people in a particular sort of relationship, which can range from the friendliness of the neighborhood tavern to the coaction of the cocktail lounge where the availability of alcoholic beverages is an important but not always decisive element in the ongoing interaction. We can think of people's needs to consume alcoholic beverages and design efficient institutions for dispensing them (including vending machines); we can also think in terms of people's needs to be with others of their species and design settings where this is possible. In America today these two needs are filled by the same institution--the tavern. This has many implications for social problems connected with alcohol--including the 50 per cent of arrests connected in some significant way with alcohol, or the 2 per cent of drinkers who are likely to have problems handling alcohol --as well as society's attitudes toward other mind-changing drugs such as marijuana or LSD. Other countries provide specialized institutions --the opium den or the tea pad--where drugs other than alcohol may be taken legally. Our society by its legal code has made alcohol the major mind-changing agent, and this, in turn, has affected the evolution and form of the drinking establishment.
This is one reason why it is impossible to understand the physical form of the tavern, the arrangement of the furniture and the social relationships among the clientele without taking into account the laws and administrative rules surrounding alcohol consumption in our society. It is true that the design of the bathroom is influenced by building codes, union regulations, and cultural taboos but even here one does not find the detailed regulation that surrounds alcohol use. No functional approach could explain why one liquor store resembles a post office where a customer cannot touch the merchandise and another a pleasure palace. With alcohol use we deal less with a silent language than with the effects of explicit laws and restrictions.
Designed for Drinking
Liquor is an important factor in the tourist business. A Wisconsin official complained that in sparsely populated wooded areas, where liquor licenses are few, promoters are reluctant to build resorts and vacation facilities, whatever the scenic charms may be. (Landscape, Winter 1967)
If a library is designed to encourage privacy and keep people out of each other's way, taverns are designed for just the opposite purpose. Anyone who walks through the door can partake of the companionable atmosphere as well as the available beverages. Pubs are by title public houses designed for sociability. Privateness, exclusiveness, and the ability to restrict entry are at a minimum. This is not true of all drinking places, such as private clubs which do restrict entry, but it is the special characteristic of the public house as an open region that makes it interesting to us from an environmental standpoint. No one tries to find privacy in a pub. One can find amusement and commodities that will change mood and relieve anxiety, companionship, and escape from family or office. However, the relief from stress or unpleasant interpersonal contact is not the same as privacy. Nor is the atmosphere due solely to the availability of alcohol, for the same condition was characteristic of many coffee houses. Indeed the teahouses of the Orient and the coffee houses of the Middle East bear many resemblances to the American tavern. Here is a poster from an old English coffee house:
First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together.
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind
But take the next seat that he can find.
The Viennese coffee house of today is described in these terms:
To many a Viennese his coffee house is his home away from home, his haven and island of tranquility, his reading room and gambling hall, his sounding board and grumbling hall. There at least he is safe from nagging wife and unruly children, monotonous radios and barking dogs, tough bosses and impatient creditors.
Cafe patrons around the world may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Furniture designer Henning Larsen was consulted by Copenhagen cafe owners whose customers lingered endlessly over coffee. Larsen developed a chair that exerts disagreeable pressure upon the spine if occupied for over a few minutes, The Larsen chair is now being marketed in New York and other cities. Hotel keepers and tavern owners have also been concerned with people being "too comfortable." This is particularly true when they occupy public space without spending money. When he took over the Waldorf Hotel, Conrad Hilton observed that the comfortable divans were occupied day after day by the same characters. Although they were correctly dressed and well-mannered, they did not spend money in the hotel. Hilton remedied the situation by moving the couches out of the lobby into the nearest food and drink area of the hotel. In planning new hotels, the policy is to "make the lounges small and the cafes big."
The same view is held by those who design airport terminals, which are perhaps the most sociofugal public spaces in American society. In most terminals it is virtually impossible for two people sitting down to converse comfortably for any length of time. The chairs are either bolted together and arranged in rows theater-style facing the ticket counters, or arranged back-to-back, and even if they face one another they are at such distances that comfortable conversation is impossible. The motive for the sociofugal arrangement appears the same as that in hotels and other commercial places--to drive people out of the waiting areas into cafes, bars, and shops where they will spend money.
[Sociofugal arrangements drive people toward the periphery of a room as contrasted to sociopetal arrangements, which fools people towards the center and thereby bring them together. See Humphrey Osmond "The Relationship Between Architect and Psychiatrist" in Psychiatric Architecture, ed. Charles Goshen, (Washington: American Psychiatric Association, 1959)]
Dr. Johnson compared the public environment of a tavern with the private environment of a home where a guest cannot truly be at ease. The guest must always exert care and circumspection since the home is not his own. In the pub there is a general freedom from anxiety--any man with the money can be certain of a welcome. Paul Halmos describes the pub of this period as "the only free, non-esoteric, non-exclusive, weatherproof, meeting place for the ordinary worker." Sherri Cavan, an American sociologist whose doctor's degree was based on her visits to San Francisco bars, describes public drinking places as open regions--people who are present, whether acquainted or not, have the right to engage others in conversation and the duty to accept overtures from them. The concept was developed by Erving Goffman and goes beyond the obligation not to snub others, to the point where a person cannot be offended when someone else approaches him? A patron can still arrange to be alone, bunching himself up at the end of the bar and staring down at his drink, or sitting at a remote table facing the wall, but these positions and postures must be maintained rigorously. Even this display of a desire for separation does not guarantee privacy, since at any time some sympathetic denizen may decide to initiate psychotherapy.
Cavan contrasts the lateral arrangement at the bar with the face-to-face arrangement at tables. The boundaries between individuals in rows are unclear and easier to cross than those of people seated around a table. At the bar one finds tendencies for encounters to be more fluid and unstable. The likelihood of interaction between strangers at a bar varies directly with the distance between them. As a general rule, a span of three bar stools is the maximum distance over which patrons would attempt to initiate an encounter. Any more than this would require raising one's voice to a level that would annoy other patrons. Cavan describes how interaction patterns vary between mixed sex and like sex pairs. Two men conversing with an empty stool between them are likely to remain that way since a move to adjacent stools would generally bring them too close to one another. However, if a man initiates a conversation with a woman at the bar with an empty chair between them, he is likely to move over to the adjacent stool in order to prevent someone else from coming between them.
There are numerous accounts of the connection between lighting, noise level, and duration of stay. It is reported that as illumination increases so does noise level, and both will reduce the amount of time people remain inside a drinking establishment. If a restaurateur wants to capitalize on high turnover, he uses high illumination levels and doesn't worry too much about soundproofing. On the other hand, if he wants people to remain a long time he uses dim lighting and sound-absorbing surfaces such as carpets, drapes, and padded ceilings. Low illumination will permit greater intimacy between couples and thereby increase seating capacity. The findings are reasonable and accord well with studies of sensory facilitation between modalities, but they also should be systematically verified.
Neither has there been much empirical confirmation of the view that "the casual drink tastes better in pleasant surroundings. The company seems friendlier if the room is congenial, the fire bright, and the host or his servants welcoming." The influence of environment on drug effects urgently requires further study. Many of the avid believers in the psychedelic revolution insist that drugs should be taken in a setting with soft music, carpeted floors, dim lighting, and pleasant company. They attribute some proportion of "bad trips" to the unfortunate conditions under which the drugs are taken, e.g., a frightened young man alone in his apartment with the shades drawn, towels stuffed under the door, and a chair propped against the doorknob. Maslow and Mintz demonstrated that attractive surroundings would affect people's judgment of pictures and their mental outlook. Since society has seen fit to legislate the decor of the tavern, the amount of outside advertising, and whether drinks can be served to people seated or standing up, the least that is needed is some factual information on the role of tavern milieu as it affects the drinker's outlook and behavior.
Whereas many people feel that environment facilitates the mood enhancing effects of alcohol, the obverse position that alcohol will aid in the appreciation of the environment is not widely accepted. Museum directors and national park authorities, to name only two groups, are generally opposed to the consumption of alcohol on the premises. Cavan cites the ruling of the California State Park Commission that "if the intent of the winter park authority is to provide access to an area of outstanding natural beauty and outdoor recreation, sale of liquor at tile mountain station will not enhance this experience." Actually there is very little information on the way that alcohol affects aesthetic experience apart from anecdotes and moral strictures. Park authorities and museum directors object less to the effects of alcohol on the viewer's perception than on his behavior as it affects other people. Even if it were established that alcohol enhanced aesthetic experience, its role in this culture in automobile accidents and aggressive behavior might be sufficient to keep it out of culture palaces or recreation areas and confined to settings specifically designed for its use.
The physical form of the drinking establishment is as much a product of legal restrictions as economic laws and social customs. The field of tavern design reveals quickly the limitations of a purely functional approach to architectural problems. In New York City the public bar may not be the major feature of the establishment; in Saskatchewan a patron may not be served standing; in Alberta the beer parlor must close during dinner hour; public drinking places in Chicago must have an outside window that enables people outside to look in. It would be hazardous to design a drinking place without the assistance of local architects, beverage control officials, and city fathers; generally it is wise to bring them all into the act. Finding a place to drink or buying a bottle are two instances where interstate travel makes a real difference. One can eat the same food in a Holiday Inn anywhere, but he can order wine but not whiskey with his meal in one place, and in the next he must bring his own bottle and entrust to the waiter the onerous task of pouring it. Generally it is cheaper for a person to drink at home than in the local tavern. The raison d'être of the tavern goes beyond the opportunity for people to drink alcoholic beverages. This fact must be understood before one can understand the social and physical form of the tavern. A man goes to a bar to drink, to see and meet other people. It is a place to avoid boredom and existential loneliness. A bar allows for the transformation of loneliness into alienation with the availability of oblivion through alcohol.
Within the United States there are major regional and local differences in drinking places; within the same city there will be neighborhood taverns that draw their clientele from the surrounding blocks and downtown cocktail lounges that draw people from all over the city and beyond. The neighborhood pub will encourage sociability among regular patrons, but the outsider will be looked upon with suspicion and hostility. Such pubs are frequently called "locals" by regular customers. This is the situation in Ireland where each crossroads has its own cherished public house with a fiercely dedicated clientele. Frequently these are regarded as private preserves by the regulars, and the welcome mat is extended to visitors only if they are known to the regulars. An outside sign reading "Select" informs ladies to keep out. A study of neighborhood taverns in Chicago by Gottlieb showed that 83 per cent of the patrons resided within two blocks of the tavern in which they were interviewed. On the other hand it is not difficult in any American city to find examples of the bar where meaningful contact is at a minimum, V. S. Pritchett describes the lonely men in New York City sitting speechlessly on a row of barstools, with their arms triangled on the bar before a bottle of beer, their drinking money before them? If anyone speaks to his neighbor under these circumstances, he is likely to receive a suspicious stare for his efforts. The barman is interested in the patrons as customers -- he is there to sell, they are there to buy. Another visiting Englishman makes the same point when he describes the American pub as a
hoked up salon, the atmosphere is as chilly as the beer . . . when I asked a stranger to have a drink, he looked at me as if I were mad. In England if a guy's a stranger, it's automatic that each guy buys the other a drink. You enjoy each other's company, and everyone is happy.
Yet even in England the complaint has been made that
A good deal of drinking today is vertical and hurried: far too infrequently do we meet the place where you are welcome to sit comfortably round table or fire, talk and drink at your ease without a waiter hovering around, emptying the ashtrays, whipping away any empty bottles or glasses, as a mute reminder that it is about time you reordered.
Another example of an isolated environment in New York City, probably overlapping in its clientele with the lonely New York box, is the movie house showing pornographic films:
As to that audience, regardless of time of day or night, weekday or weekend, it is composed of lone men who sit passively and patiently as far as possible in a geometric mosaic worthy of ninth-century architects. It is considered bad form to sit directly behind, or behind and one seat to the side, of an earlier arrival. And, in five or six trips, I never heard a patron address a single word to another patron.
The pub owner is legally responsible for the acts of his patrons. He can lose his license if he serves people who are underage, drunk, disorderly, gambling, engaged in lewd or lascivious behavior, or who establish liaisons for such acts in his place? The liquor commissioners in Nova Scotia may "at their own discretion and for any reason they deem sufficient" suspend any license they have granted. Owners of theaters, bowling alleys, and hotels are also accountable for some acts of their patrons, but the range of offenses as well as the intensity of official scrutiny and enforcement are much more evident in drinking establishments. As one man wryly observed,
the only person who would possibly succeed as an English publican is an unusually erudite and resourceful lawyer .... Considering the number of mistakes a [publican] can make, it's astonishing that there's ever time in the law courts for dealing with other matters, like murder and income tax evasion?
Drinking establishments establish their own unique character, which will determine who will be attracted to the premises, how they will act, what they will drink, and how long they will stay. The bar that serves the young unmarried set will attract those who want to associate with young unmarried people--probably other young unmarried people. Jim Ghidella interviewed 48 patrons at "The Hut," a decrepit beer parlor in a university town, unique in that it was the only establishment there that did not attract students. The atmosphere was dingy, and the barstools were worn and patched. Almost all the patrons were white males of working class background. More than a third of those interviewed visited the establishment once or twice every day, and most of the remainder came once a week or more. Most of the regulars restricted their bar attendance to this particular place. They felt it was "an established place" which contained working people of their own age. Although four-fifths of the patrons came in alone, almost all made some contact with another person during their stay in the bar.
The sort of patron who prefers a low-key working class atmosphere does not object to drab surroundings. In fact, he prefers this to newer establishments. One cannot readily ask about the "functional environment'' of a drinking establishment without knowing the prospective clientele. Whatever is built is likely to attract those individuals adapted to the establishment. Careful choice of location, external appearance, decor, and price list will influence who the patrons will be. This illustrates a fundamental difference between the architect's and the biologist's ideas of functionalism. To a biologist a species is adapted when it fits into its surroundings--for example, when a bird beak is suitable for obtaining the sorts of seeds available in its biotope, however unusual or grotesque that beak may appear to zoo visitors. Biologists are generally concerned with things as they are, or the reasons why they developed as they did, rather than environments and organisms that do not yet exist. He is concerned with adaptation and habitat selection, whereas the architect is concerned with planning a new world.
To understand the connection between physical form, social custom, and legal regulations, I undertook a series of observations in beer parlors in Edmonton, Canada. The lowest common denominator of a Canadian beer parlor is that only beer can be purchased (by the glass or bottle), and it must be consumed on the premises. There are numerous variations of this theme, particularly in regard to the sale of food and the presence of women. Some years ago the Province of Alberta forbade men and women to sit in the same beer parlor--each hotel had two rooms, one for men and one for women. A man would escort his lady to the door of her beer parlor, make sure she found a seat, and then hasten back to the men's side, call the waiter over, and order for himself and his lady next door. The situation has improved somewhat, largely at the insistence of the hotel owners. There are still two sections in the Edmonton beer parlors, one for men and the other for ladies and escorts. If for some reason a woman wants to drink only in the presence of other women, she is out of luck. There were 32 beer parlors in Edmonton, a city of 350,000 in western Canada, in addition to about the same number of cocktail lounges, dining lounges, and private clubs. In contrast, Worktown, which was studied by the Mass Observation team, contained 304 pubs to service 175,000 people. The men's section of the Edmonton pub, which was the concern of our study, was a large open area containing tables, each surrounded by four chairs. No patron could be served standing, and singing and group games were forbidden.
A recent article describes the Canadian drinking man in these terms:
It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to spot an English-Canadian tourist drinking abroad .... In a bar where everybody else is standing, the Canadian is the one sitting down. When it comes time to order another round, the Canadian is the one who compulsively drains his glass to the last drop before handing it back to the waiter. When the locals break into song, the Canadian looks ill at ease. The bright lights bother him a bit and so do all the signs exhorting him to drink this or that brew .... The reason Canadians tend to have a Pavlovian response to alcohol instead of regarding it as a relaxing pastime, must have something to do with the conditioning they receive in their native environment. They come. after all, from a country where a temperance ethos has been transformed into legalistic chaos, where public drinking is a solemn ritual conducted in stygian gloom ....
We were particularly interested in the isolated drinker, the man who sits by himself and consumes beer in the presence of other people, if our ideas on the importance of the pub as a social center are correct, a lone drinker in a social setting deserves particular attention. The solitary drinker, who drinks by himself away from other people, usually in a private dwelling or rented room, has frequently been described as a pre-alcoholic, it seems important to distinguish between a man who drinks in solitude and one who drinks alone in a setting designed to encourage sociability. The isolation of the latter is more a matter of social than physical distance. George Simreel described it this way, "The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one finds himself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on a train, or in the traffic of a large city." The situation of a man drinking beer by himself in the presence of others fits Simreel's concept of isolation. It is apparent that environmental programming must do more than establish proximity to facilitate communication and friendship.
During the first study, which took place in 1962, each of Edmonton's 32 beer parlors was visited twice. The sessions covered all the open hours. We were not interested in differences between individual pubs, and there were many, particularly when one compared neighborhoods, but rather in the total picture of beer parlors in the city? The observer visited each pub at a specified hour and sat down at a table that afforded a clear view of some part of the beer parlor. The observer attempted to be as inconspicuous as possible and ordered the expected amount of beer, generally one large glass.
The Mass Observation team had found that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone and attributed this to the social pressure on a person in a group to keep up with the fastest member. At first glance this view is supported by our findings that the average number of new glasses ordered by isolated drinkers was 1.7 compared to 3.5 by group drinkers. Although it is clear that people in groups drink larger quantities than people alone, the implication of this trend becomes intelligible only when we examine the time spent in the pub by each person. We found that group drinkers, on the average, spent twice as long in the pub as isolated drinkers. This made it necessary to re-examine our figures on consumption taking into account duration of stay. This comparison shows no difference in the tempo of drinking by isolated and group drinkers, People in groups drink more than people alone, not because they drink faster, but because they remain longer. The presence of companions has less effect on the tempo of drinking than on the attractiveness of the pub as a place to sit. One cautionary note is necessary: we have no way of knowing what happens to an isolated drinker when he leaves the pub. The fellow may simply go down the street to the next pub looking for the companionship that he did not find in the first place. Support for this notion comes from observation of loners who were joined by other people. Of the 29 joined isolates, 21 remained through the entire 60-minute observation period.
[Eugenia Butler decided to test the "gabby woman hypothesis" by seeing how long male and female college students remain in a college cafeteria. To her surprise, she found no difference between men and women, but there was a marked difference between students dining alone and those in groups. Students eating alone remained an average of 15 minutes, students eating with members of their own sex remained an average of 28 minutes, and students eating in mixed-sex groups remained an average of 34 minutes.]
The total amount of beer consumed, regardless of whether the person was alone or in a group, varied directly with the length of time in the pub. People who remained less than 15 minutes (during the one-hour observation period) averaged 0.4 new glasses, people who remained between 16 and 30 minutes averaged 1.1 new glasses; people who remained 31 to 45 minutes averaged 2.8 new glasses; and people who remained 46 to 60 minutes averaged 4.9 new glasses. It is hardly surprising that people who stay longer in the pub drink more, but it is of interest that the oft-described pattern of "nursing" a single beer for an indefinite period is extremely rare in the Edmonton beer parlor. Of those people who remained longer than 45 minutes, and this includes both isolated and group drinkers, every single one ordered at least one additional glass.
A limitation of this study was its use of one-hour periods, which put a ceiling on the amount of drinking possible. We therefore embarked on another study to determine how long patrons stay in the pub and relate this to their drinking. During this second study, which took place several months later, the observer arrived at a beverage room and selected as subjects those patrons who entered after he did. He was instructed to select three isolated and three group drinkers as subjects in each pub and remain as long as the subjects stayed. The median length of stay for isolated drinkers was 22 minutes, for group drinkers 54 minutes, and for joined isolates 89 minutes. Consumption of beer depended on the time a person remained in the put--the longer a person stayed, the more he drank. As before, there was no difference in tempo of drinking between isolated, group, and joined isolate drinkers. The difference in total consumption was attributable solely to the length of time a person remained in the pub.
These results do not support the idea that the social stimulation of being a part of a drinking group increases drinking tempo. It is likely that this finding is due to the unique physical environment of the Edmonton pub, particularly since the Mass Observation team reported different results in Worktown. The patrons in an English pub can play darts or skittles, read the papers, watch the birdie, or take part in heated discussions of politics that include half the men in the pub. The English pub is much smaller, more intimate, and friendlier than the large Edmonton establishments where there is nothing to do but converse (if you happen to be sitting with someone else) and drink beer. Hot meals are not available, and there are practically no other diversions--television is restricted to special events, and then only with the permission of the Provincial authorities. [Subsequent laws have changed this policy.] The lone drinker has nothing to do except drink and watch other people drink. The group drinker can talk with his tablemates and, with the stimulation from a beer, this is probably sufficient to keep him occupied. The fact that joined isolates stay longest supports the idea that the opportunity to meet others, rather than look at them (the spectator hypothesis) or the presence of beer, is what makes the pub a pleasant environment. The Spartan surroundings mean that social factors become preeminent in decisions to stay or leave. It is likely that diversions such as darts or cards would enable lone drinkers to remain longer, but we do not know how this would affect drinking. The Mass Observation team believed that these activities reduced the amount of drinking. They suggested that the high rate of arrests for drunkenness in another community, not the one they studied, occurred because the licensing authorities discouraged games and activities. The general belief among Albertans was that the Provincial government, which was known for its Fundamentalist views, reluctantly allowed drinking but attempted to make it as depressing as possible. When law and architecture conspire to inhibit sociability, a pub can be a place to buy and drink beer, but that is about all.
It is difficult to give a simple answer to the question: "What is the function of a drinking establishment?" There is reason to believe that the major function of a pub for most patrons is to provide a setting where people can come together--if not to meet at least to he with others---to maintain the social distance as the biologist Hediger uses the term. The patron may not be interacting with others, but at least he is not so far away that he has lost contact with his species, The key element here is being with other people in a particular sort of relationship, which can range from the friendliness of the neighborhood tavern to the coaction of the cocktail lounge where the availability of alcoholic beverages is an important but not always decisive element in the ongoing interaction. We can think of people's needs to consume alcoholic beverages and design efficient institutions for dispensing them (including vending machines); we can also think in terms of people's needs to be with others of their species and design settings where this is possible. In America today these two needs are filled by the same institution--the tavern. This has many implications for social problems connected with alcohol--including the 50 per cent of arrests connected in some significant way with alcohol, or the 2 per cent of drinkers who are likely to have problems handling alcohol --as well as society's attitudes toward other mind-changing drugs such as marijuana or LSD. Other countries provide specialized institutions --the opium den or the tea pad--where drugs other than alcohol may be taken legally. Our society by its legal code has made alcohol the major mind-changing agent, and this, in turn, has affected the evolution and form of the drinking establishment.
This is one reason why it is impossible to understand the physical form of the tavern, the arrangement of the furniture and the social relationships among the clientele without taking into account the laws and administrative rules surrounding alcohol consumption in our society. It is true that the design of the bathroom is influenced by building codes, union regulations, and cultural taboos but even here one does not find the detailed regulation that surrounds alcohol use. No functional approach could explain why one liquor store resembles a post office where a customer cannot touch the merchandise and another a pleasure palace. With alcohol use we deal less with a silent language than with the effects of explicit laws and restrictions.
2 comments:
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