Netflix’s new comedy The Chair plunges viewers headfirst into a prestigious university’s struggling and surprisingly chaotic English department, led by Killing Eve star Sandra Oh. Along the way, it blends comedy and social critiques within a college setting that looks like it was pulled directly out of a dark academia mood board. But where was The Chair filmed?
Oh stars as Ji-Yoon Kim, who’s just become the first woman of color to chair the English department at the lower-tier ivy university of Pembroke. Her tenure proves to be a rollercoaster, as she has to deal with students’ disinterested in the very white, very outdated curriculum, a self-destructive coworker-turned-love interest (Jay Duplass), a lack of department funding, and parenting her young daughter Ju Ju (Everly Carganilla) as a single mom.
The series constantly picks apart the elitism and barriers toward marginalized people that institutions like Pembroke perpetuate by contrasting the characters’ messy lives with the pristine, gorgeous campus on which they work. While you can’t actually visit the fictional school, you may be wondering where the show’s stunning locations were filmed.
Read on to get the scoop on The Chair‘s filming locations.
WHERE WAS THE CHAIR FILMED?
The Chair was filmed on location in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the surrounding area. To create Pembroke University’s campus, the show alternated between Washington & Jefferson College and Chatham University’s Shadyside campus.
The neighborhood of Shadyside also served as the backdrop for the college town of Pembroke itself, while a few scenes from Season 1 were also filmed at the Pittsburgh International Airport.
As it turns out, the Steel City has become a popular shooting location for Netflix projects. The new Jason Momoa action movie Sweet Girl was almost entirely filmed around the metropolitan area, too, including other notable locations like PNC Park and the Carnegie Museum of Art.
A win for yinz!
