Bench, Statue, or Both?

 

It’s popular to build statues onto benches. There is a beloved example on the Georgia Tech campus, in the city of Decatur (in Georgia), and the above example resides in Beijing’s Back Lake district. As benches these aren’t great (i.e. they suck) because the statue always has the best seat (ostensibly the one who cares least.) As statues, however, they are kind of nice- little candid moments of the kind one has sitting on a bench. Of course, this begs the question of why take up the additional space with a partially functional bench.

Not to be  conspiracy minded, but I can’t help but think the statue is there, in part, to keep homeless people from sprawling out and scaring the tourists away. Some parks have benches that have armrests every two feet, possibly to achieve a similar goal.

Anyway, I particularly like the statue above, over the usual solitary brass figures, because you can occupy yourself by building an entire back story. Is it a mother and son, a Mrs. Robinson, or a Party official trying to the tell the lady why they will be demolishing her lifelong  hutong.