The artist book Sidewalk Salon: 1001 Street Chairs in Cairo combines Polaroid photography and text to showcase the creative practices of design that occur on the sidewalk along with the unplanned interventions in the public space that give Cairo its distinctive character. Acting at times as zoom and as wide- angle lenses, we use the chair as a tool to explore intimate details and collective aspects of the city. If strictly speaking Sidewalk Salon is a photographic documentation of original chairs from the streets, in a larger sense it deals with the material and human dimensions of a layer of Cairo. Out of more than fifty walks realized over 3 years, we highlighted the paths of 3 walks pinning to their location on a map the chairs photographed. Invisible in the images, users of the street chairs are pres-ent through the pages of this volume. Interviews with chair owners give voice to the people that spend time on the sidewalk everyday. Fiction and poetry commissioned to leading Egyptian authors, presents street chairs and their owners from another angle. A long essay uses the prism of street chairs to expand on these reflections and to examine socio-economic, gender, design and political dynamics in relation with the uses of chairs in the public spaces in the city.