Sorry, Adirondacks: This Summer’s Best Seat Is a Modern Rocking Chair

THE PORCH ROCKING CHAIR: It’s an American classic on par with apple pie, the Louisville Slugger and the folksy works of Norman Rockwell. But given how few of us have Rockwellian homes and families, or porches that offer bucolic views, the traditional wooden seat—rigid and staid—can feel out of place in our urban outdoor spaces. Rocking chairs are “designed and built so well,” said New York interior designer Tina Ramchandani. “[They] just needed an updated look.”

That’s why she and contemporary furniture designers are increasingly seeking what they call “mod rockers.” Typically constructed from weather-resilient materials like metal and plastic, these seats sway and creak just as capably as their predecessors, but—with their more curvaceous, colorful designs—clearly belong to the 21st century. 

Invented and popularized in 19th-century America, rocking chairs were considered “undignified and outlandish” by visiting Europeans, said Witold Rybczynski, emeritus professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair.” 

But the rocking chair, he added, aligned perfectly with the ethos of the still-young U.S.—a playful, democratic piece of furniture befitting both presidents and farmers. Practical too: Before air conditioning, rocking on a porch gave Americans a fighting chance of catching a breeze during stifling, humid summers. The basic design, he said, is “pretty hard to improve on.” 

Abril Zepeda tried anyway. The Managua, Nicaragua-based creative director of furniture retailer MasayaCo in Nashville, Tenn., conceived Izapa. It’s a rocking chair that, despite a traditional teak wood frame with a walnut finish, features a joyfully patterned seat and back woven from colored manila cord. Though another recent example, the Houe ReCLIPS Rocking Chair, skews a bit more conservative, its olive-green slats are mostly made from recycled plastic household trash sourced in Denmark. 

Designers are contextualizing these rockers in ways their ancestors couldn’t have fathomed. Ximena Rodriguez of New York-based design and architecture firm CetraRuddy recently perched a pair of woven and metal rockers on the wraparound terrace of a slick Manhattan high-rise condo. A more traditional rocker, she said, “would have felt out of place” given the home’s modern interiors. And, Rodriguez added, when the rockers are not in use, their sculptural silhouettes add more design value than the boxy look of many modern outdoor chairs and loungers would. 

As for placement, Ramchandani, who mentioned during a phone interview that she was teetering on an outdoor polypropylene rocking chair at the time, offered this advice: Make sure you place the chair in a spot with ample space for its full range of motion. Corners rarely work.

If possible, Ramchandani recommends grouping a few rockers, angled toward each other to spur conversation. In a Millington, N.J., backyard, she arranged five navy craftsman-style rocking chairs around a patio firepit. But even if you have room for just one or two swayers, you can create a fashionable vignette, she said, by adding a wee table or “a throw pillow in an outdoor fabric for a punch of pattern or whimsy.” 

And don’t forget the view. Rybczynski relishes the chairs’ adaptability—with a simple pivot, you can find an angle you like. According to Rodriguez, positioning yourself to take in, say, a beloved flower bed will help usher in the serene state of mind the mere act of rocking already encourages.

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