Third place
30 places in the atlas
Traditional or popular social infrastructure that works as a third place without ever having used the name: public baths, markets, shopping streets, gastronomic societies, old communal institutions.
Japan9
First Makishi Public Market第一牧志公設市場
Naha, Okinawa · Okinawa
"Okinawa's kitchen": a municipal market of over 70 stalls with the mochiage system (buy the produce and have it cooked upstairs), reopened in 2023 as…
Inari-yu / Sento & Neighborhood稲荷湯
Kita, Tokio · Kanto
The NPO Sento & Neighborhood is restoring this 1930 bathhouse (on the WMF 2020 Watch List) and turned an adjacent century-old nagaya into a community…
Karahori Shotengai空堀商店街
Osaka · Kansai
An 800-metre shopping street that survived the 1945 bombings, with machiya converted into complexes of cafés, galleries and shops (Ren, Sou, Hoju).
Kosugiyu小杉湯
Suginami, Tokio · Kanto
A neighbourhood sento reinvented as an intergenerational third place: themed baths, collaborations with artists and community programmes.
Kumano Travel / Tanabe田辺市熊野ツーリズムビューロー
Tanabe, Wakayama · Kansai
A community tourism office, the first half-public half-private entity of its kind in Japan, connecting local businesses along the Kumano Kodo with in…
machimori / Atami Ginza熱海銀座
Atami, Shizuoka · Chubu
Bottom-up regeneration of central Atami after its tourism bubble collapsed: vacant premises renovated by young entrepreneurs and "renovation machizuk…
Spain4
Casa Grande del Pumarejo
Sevilla · Andalucía
An 18th-century palace inhabited and defended by its neighbours as a community house: living heritage, a popular school, a solidarity pantry.
Concejos abiertos y facenderas
Montaña leonesa y meseta · Castilla y León
Neighbourhood assemblies (concejo abierto) and communal works (facendera, hacendera) that still govern hundreds of small municipalities and commonly…
Sociedades gastronómicas (txokos)
Donostia y todo Euskadi · País Vasco
Collective kitchens where members cook, eat and talk as equals: the vernacular gastronomic third place par excellence, with over a century of history.
Tribunal de las Aguas
Valencia · C. Valenciana
The customary court that settles the huerta's irrigation disputes in the street, orally and in minutes, and has done so for a millennium.
France4
Écolieu La Filerie
Fresnes · Centre-Val de Loire
A resource space for ecological transition in the Sologne, created in November 2019 by a group of residents of Loir-et-Cher around a vegetable garden…
Le Champ Commun
Augan · Bretagne
A cooperative created in late 2009 in Augan, a village of 1,500 people in central Brittany, to sustain local shops in a rural area affected by the di…
Le Quartier Libre
Rouen · Normandie
An 8,000 m² plot on the left bank of Rouen, occupied since 2019 by the Friche Lucien and relaunched in 2022 as Le Quartier Libre, pending works for t…
U Chjosu di a VignarellaU Chjosu di a Vignarella
Vico · Corse
A former hayloft of the Jeanne d'Arc care home for older people in Vico, refurbished since 2021 as a third place open to the whole village, winner of…
Italy13
Casa del Popolo Il ProgressoCircolo Il Progresso
Florencia (FI) · Toscana
The Casa del Popolo Il Progresso was founded in 1915 in the Florentine district of Rifredi as a workers' recreational society and moved in 1922 to th…
Circolo Arci Guernelli
Bolonia (BO) · Emilia-Romagna
The Circolo Arci Guernelli has operated since 1945 as a meeting point for the San Donato district in Bologna.
Comunanza Agraria di Santo Stefano dei Piccioni
Foligno (PG) · Umbria
The Comunanza Agraria di Santo Stefano dei Piccioni manages land of medieval origin in a small hamlet of Foligno, in Umbria, with usi civici rights g…
Famiglia Cooperativa di Rovere della Luna
Rovere della Luna (TN) · Trentino-Alto Adige
The Famiglia Cooperativa di Rovere della Luna is a village cooperative shop active since 1905, heir to the model that the priest Don Lorenzo Guetti p…
Le Regole del Comelico
Comelico Superiore (BL) · Veneto
The Regole del Comelico are at once a patrimony of woods, meadows and pastures and the community of regolieri who own and manage it collectively and…
Magnifica Comunita di Fiemme
Cavalese (TN) · Trentino-Alto Adige
The Magnifica Comunità di Fiemme collectively and indivisibly administers around 20,000 hectares of woods and pastures in the Val di Fiemme, a right…
What they share: They have sustained everyday encounter since long before the phrase third place existed, and today they are civic infrastructure at risk or in reinvention.