How the Friends Sets Transcended Television
Photo: Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
September 22, 2024, marks 30 years since the premiere of Friends. And while the show quickly became a juggernaut when it first aired—bringing fans religiously to their television sets every Thursday night and garnering 52.5 million viewers for the series finale in 2004—syndication and streaming have helped Friends grow into a singular phenomenon with a multigenerational audience who is still tuning in three decades later. Jokes and catchphrases—Phoebe not having a “pla” or Ross yelling “PIVOT!”—endure, and the core cast (Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, and the late Matthew Perry) is beloved. But perhaps more than any other sitcom from the era, the sets of Friends have transcended the small screen, Monica’s apartment and Central Perk becoming instantly recognizable cultural touchstones in their own right.
A common sentiment among Friends fans is that it is their “comfort show,” one they return to again and again because they find joy and familiarity in it. And it seems that for many, seeing the purple walls of Monica’s apartment or the comfy-cozy seating at Central Perk hundreds of times over on their television set simply isn’t enough: They want to physically step into the world of Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Ross, and Chandler.
In honor of the show’s 25th anniversary in 2019, Warner Bros opened a Friends Experience pop-up in New York City, where visitors could pose in recreations of the sets they know and love. What at the time seemed like a fun bit of novelty marketing turned out to be an immense success, and the experience now has another flagship location in London, one opening soon in Las Vegas, and there have been additional pop-ups in 20 cities around the world.
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“For many of the fans, the physical spaces are a character,” Peter van Roden, EVP, Global Themed Entertainment, Warner Bros. Discovery Global Experiences tells AD. “It's very clear when we talk to the fans that the whole idea of these iconic spaces, of sitting on the orange couch, for example, [helps them relive] those feelings that you have when you watch the show.”
Rachel Gannon, a realtor with Home Experts Realty in Dayton, Ohio, and a longtime Friends fan, capitalized on this when she decorated an Airbnb property she owned to look just like Monica’s fictional NYC apartment, which, like all of the sets of Friends, was created at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. “There were a lot of late nights with a bottle of wine, watching Friends reruns and online shopping,” she tells AD of the decorating process. Not only did she source furniture pieces and art prints from Amazon, Etsy, and Facebook Marketplace that exactly matched Monica’s eclectic decor, she even snuck in references to different plot points for fans to stumble upon throughout the home, like copies of The Shining and Little Women in the freezer, a box of condoms and candy bars under the bed, and Paul Newman salad dressing and couscous in the kitchen.
“We had a couple of bridal parties book the Airbnb, and people that immersed themselves in Friends and love the show as much as we do,” she tells AD. “And we had a lot of little hidden Easter eggs throughout the house.” When Gannon listed the property for sale in 2022, it went viral. And though she had to part ways with the home, there are numerous other Friends-themed Airbnbs currently available to book, in locations ranging from Porto Alegre, Brazil, to Lisbon, Portugal, to Covington, Kentucky.
When Kate Strasbaugh, a teacher and interior designer based in Toledo, Ohio, purchased her current home, she knew exactly what she wanted to do with the strangely oversized bathroom in her new basement: turn it into a mini replica of Monica’s apartment. “The room was my canvas because it’s kind of quirky already,” she tells AD. “It had the bathroom vanity—that would be Monica’s cabinets. We could put the picture frame on one of the doors. There was a door that would become Monica’s ‘me closet.’”
To Strasbaugh, the Friends sets are so special—and so successful—because they feel real. “That fourth wall the viewer is looking through in Monica’s apartment, it just feels like it could legitimately be there. Also, when you watch from one episode to the next, it feels like people live there. Monica’s kitchen shelves are full of pantry items. It’s the same thing with Joey and Chandler’s apartment—there are different elements that shift and change. You’ll notice that they had one set of throw pillows in one episode, and then those are gone.”
That Monica’s apartment appears relatable (though the debate about whether any of the characters would have been able to afford their places rages on) is a testament to production designer John Shaffner, his partner Joe Stewart, and set decorator Greg Grande. When creating the space, Shaffner and Stewart referenced their own former New York City sixth-floor walkup, and Grande filled it with furniture that appeared collected and like it could have been secondhand. “Ultimately, these kids did not buy their furniture at stores. They found it on the street. They inherited some of it. They bought some at vintage shops because it was cheap, especially then,” Shaffner tells AD.
Along with the show’s cocreators, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and producer Kevin Bright, the design team decided that the sets should be “alive,” says Shaffner. “We said, ‘These are living people. Things change.’ We changed the flowers every episode. Little things just kind of slowly evolved, like the magnets on the refrigerator door.”
Ultimately, it is the distinct, unchanging elements of the sets—the punchy purple walls, the whimsical gold picture frame around Monica’s peephole, the cushy orange sofa in the coffee shop, and the fountain in the opening credits—that give the show a distinct visual identity and clearly establish the world the titular friends inhabit, a world that fans are invited to step into or bring to life in whichever way they choose. As Gannon puts it, when watching the show, “it was like you were the seventh friend.”
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
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