The Bench in the Garden: An Inquiry Into the Scopic History of a Bench

The bench, an apparently small and almost irrelevant object, appears to function as a significant object both in the specific places where it operates and in a more general sense, in the domain where aesthetics, garden history, architecture, spatiality and subjectivity interfere. The bench acts as a powerful visual machine and regulates the reception of the landscapes it has to offer to its visitors. By transmitting verbal messages (through inscriptions), citing other benches and being part of a complex walk circuit, by providing rest and inviting its users to discover new aspects of the site, this highly polysemic element orients and disorients the visitor at the same time. Jakob’s book doesn’t intend to provide a catalogue of ‘interesting’ benches. It proposes rather an interdisciplinary journey in order to understand the way in which benches orient, teach, create emotions and direct our ‘ways of seeing’ it operating in the garden.