Please be seated! On the (im)possibilities of a bench

They are one of those objects that we often encounter in the public realm but to which we only pay any attention when we need them: benches. Be it a park bench, a city bench or, in semi-public spaces, an exhibition or garden bench, are we not always glad when one suddenly crops up in front of us? Especially if we desperately need a rest from hiking or never-ending shopping. By contrast, frequently a park or garden bench is something we specifically head for in order to sit down and think or give our thoughts free rein. Irrespective of where it is located, the bench is always an oasis made of wooden slats (or stone or concrete or steel).

In keeping with the nature of an oasis, the bench is a small cosmos unto itself. Whoever sits down on it is opting to enjoy physical and/or mental time out. We step out of our surroundings and into our very own world on the bench. We are present and yet even before we actually sit down, we have distanced ourselves. Here the calm, there the hustle and bustle. The people hurrying past and those seated. Those who have to reach a destination, and us here on the bench who are simply here, watching the goings-on.

In 14th-century Tuscany, benches were installed on plazas in order to create spaces for theater performances, street art, and tribunals, and thus promote bourgeois activities and cohesion. At the same time, their architecture communicated exactly what behavior was undesirable. The benches were only half a meter wide, too narrow to allow you to sleep on them. Benches in the public realm are installed by cities and municipalities, and even today their deployment helps dictate where people can or cannot sit and spend time. If certain groups of people are not wanted in specific places, then no benches are provided at all. The bench as a control mechanism.

Or as a gauge of gentrification. In their book which came out in 2019 on benches made of wood, “Bänke aus Holz” (with 60 instructions on how to build your own bench), authors Antje and Susann Rittermann note that according to their own observations, benches built around trees lining Berlin streets tend to disappear if the rental apartments in the particular district have been converted into condominiums. The sisters Rittermann have also determined that there is a striking number of benches in Halle an der Saale, while they are notably absent in Greece. It would seem that Greeks prefer to sit on chairs. Perhaps because chairs, more than benches, invariably have backrests? 

So what does it mean if benches are increasingly disappearing from the public realm? Anette Schneider bemoaned this fact as long ago as 2016 on a Deutschlandfunk Kultur program, and in Vienna there was an outcry in 2021 when popular park benches disappeared overnight – for “security reasons”, while in Bordeaux the number of public benches is kept to an absolute minimum. But are we really seeing an across-the-board disappearance of benches?

In London, at any rate, there are still sufficient benches, and, like in New York City, in parks they often act as “memorials”. The backrest of traditional wooden benches is outfitted with a small metal plaque bearing a dedication to a deceased person; to people who especially liked spending their time on that bench or in that park. Sometimes on anniversaries, flowers get laid in front of a bench or tied to it. A touching “secondary function” of the park bench. After all, so much life and love take place on park benches! You fall asleep on one, you picnic on it, or you simply get completely wasted on it. Entire lives get narrated on benches (a prime example here being Forrest Gump). Marriage proposals are made, and relationships terminated. Ideas are sought, and many a person meets their muse here. Hearts are poured out, tears shed. Babies are breast-fed, ducks are bread-fed. Children in the playground are watched.