The Bench in the Garden

The bench, an apparently small and almost irrelevant object, appears to function as a significant object in both through specific physical placement and in a more general sense—that of the blended domain of aesthetics, garden history, architecture, spatiality and subjectivity. The bench acts as a powerful visual machine, regulating the reception of a landscape in what it has to offer to its visitors. By transmitting verbal messages through inscriptions, citing other benches as part of a complex walk circuit, providing rest and inviting users to discover new aspects of the site, this highly polysemic element orients and disorients the visitor at the same time.