You can sit on them, but more often tourists just admire them
You can also sit down and rest on the side of the fountain, on the steps or on a monument. Benches are sometimes nice and just to admire. “Around the World” tells about unusual benches that have become landmarks.
Running on the Waves
Great Britain, Littlehampton
Littlehampton's beach bench is the longest in the UK. 300m The Long Bench, made of several thousand wooden blocks, winds along the embankment, bending around obstacles and twisting into loops. Those who wish can order a personal bar with any inscription, thus financially supporting the local foundation for helping people with developmental disabilities, which oversees the object.
The Tree of Knowledge
Canada, Montreal
The first “Secret Bench of Knowledge” appeared in front of the National Archives Library in Ottawa. Then the author, Lea Vivo, cast several more sculptures of a boy and a girl and seated them on benches in Montreal, Toronto, New York and other cities. Each such Secret Bench of Knowledge is filled with phrases of famous people about the importance of reading and the pleasure of it. But the apple in the boy's hand expresses the idea much more eloquently.
See also
- Guardian of the plains: look at 14 reserved steppes
Branched noodles< /h2>
Lebanon, Beirut
Stretching up and intertwining “spaghetti”, which turn the planks of the benches of the Franco-Argentine sculptor and designer Pablo Reynoso, do not hint at all that everything goes the way of food. And in general, this is not spaghetti, but the symbolic branches of a tree that was once a work of art. True, this particular bench in Beirut is made of steel.
Soft landing
USA, St. Petersburg
In the garden of the Salvador Dali Museum in Florida, time flows like in his paintings. This can be felt especially well when sitting on Bench Dreaming (“Sleeping bench”) with a horned support characteristic of the artist’s work and “soft clock”. By the way, the museum houses the largest collection of Dali's works outside of Europe.
Read also
- Reservoirs with a secret: look at the 10 most unusual lakes in the world
Sacred Serpent
Spain, Barcelona
There are legends about the famous modernist wave-bench by Gaudí and Jujol. According to one of them, the builders were seated on the still damp concrete with their bare backs in order to achieve maximum ergonomics of the seats. However, there are no traces of the buttocks on the bench. But the intricate mosaic includes many religious and esoteric symbols, which is a separate pleasure to study.
You can go with cats
Lithuania, Klaipeda
In 2008, during the reconstruction of the pedestrian alley of Martynas Mažvydas, the author of the first Lithuanian book, architect Vytautas Paulionis decorated a granite bench with a bronze apple. Later, local artists created several more shops with different images. In 2013, a bench with a back in the form of a cat's head appeared.
Photo: GETTY IMAGES, AFP/EAST NEWS, DREAMSTIME, ALAMY/LEGION-MEDIA, ALAMY (X2)/LEGION-MEDIA< /em>
Material published in Vokrug Sveta magazine No. 5, May 2020, partially updated in August 2023
Svyatoslav Zelensky