Hostile architecture

When Georgia O’Keeffe moved to New Mexico in 1929, she spent a month at the Taos ranch of novelist D. H. Lawrence. For portions of each day, she lay down on an old bench beneath a large ponderosa pine. In an interview years later, O’Keeffe spoke warmly of that bench where she daydreamed and soaked in the sky. Her early painting The Lawrence Tree, depicting stars poking through the tree’s branches at night, is now in the permanent collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Connecticut. If you visit, you may notice that the tree appears upside down. The museum originally showed the painting in the other direction but later flipped it over, noting that O’Keeffe considered the orientation to be ambiguous. It’s hard to know what’s upside down and right side up when reposing on a bench and looking skyward.

Outdoor benches in American life have often served as stress relievers and relaxation havens. Forrest Gump could tell his whole life story from one to anybody willing to sit and listen. My wife and I travel to a Lake Michigan island every summer, where we end each day on a bench along the shore, watching the sun descend into the water. A park bench can also be a safe place for a young or awkward couple to get acquainted without having to look too frequently into each other’s eyes.

In metro areas today, park benches are becoming an endangered species. Hostile architecture is the name urban engineers give to public space designs that discourage people from settling in. Examples include sloped window sills, retaining walls with spikes, skateboard-inhibiting metal slugs, and benches with multiple armrests to deter those looking for a bed.