[5] The Omnipresent Seat Where Time Stops
//Words: 0
//Links: 0
//Words: 0
//Links: 0
[01/09/2018, 16:38]
Mom: When can we skype?
[01/09/2018, 18:49]
Me: Well, whenever is convenient for you.
Me: Whenever grandma comes home.
Mom: She is out on the bench now.
Me: I thought so.
I walk the streets of my hometown from my own memory, and I can remember the places where someone’s eyes were fixed on me passing, greeting me kindly, asking where I’m headed. I remember those places I have stopped to rest, the places where I have waited to meet, or stood up from to leave. The same place right outside our door, where I have walked my grandma to, so she can enjoy her afternoons with the other old ladies from the neighbourhood.
I try to remember how the bench in front of my home looks, but I can’t picture it fully. I remember it grey, with a rough surface, the wood getting old and brittle, but not old enough to feel unsafe. You know, the older an object is, the sturdier and long-lasting it is. I don’t remember it not being there, it has always been, leaning on that apartment building’s facade, right at the entrance to the yard, to the right of the fence…
‘Each bench [...] should be preferably placed where there is, for example, a small space within space, a niche, a corner, a place that offers intimacy and security and, as a rule, a good microclimate as well.’1 Designing public spaces involves studying the public, in a biological and sociological sense. How the crowd moves and spreads within the urban environment, what are their physical and social needs. Public spaces are not just walking paths and squares, but spaces to meet, separate, pause, observe and connect. For that reason, sitting spaces become a crucial (and a fascinating) part of urban planning, where the placement of benches is done with the intention to create a sustainable and well functioning ecosystem. ‘The most popular places to sit can be found at the edges of open spaces, where the sitter’s back is protected, the view unobstructed, and the local climate is most favourable.’2
…To the side of the bench, as part of the facade, there is a metal sort of a door. Its only function is to display obituaries, the faces and names of people who perhaps also lived in the neighbourhood, perhaps they also used to walk past the bench, sit on it, meet up with others and share their stories.
But maybe I remember it completely wrong. I can mostly remember the bench as this vague image, rather a concept or an idea, encapsulating stories, memories and emotions of the people coming and going.
The main purpose of a bench is not sitting whatsoever but rather stepping away from the crowd and observing the surroundings. For that matter, the overview, the sensory command of a large and diverse scene is highly valued.3 ‘The opportunities of seeing other people are, as has been discussed, a question of distance between observer and object. If the streets are too wide and the spaces too big, the opportunity of being able to view, from one place, the space and the events going on is more or less lost.’4 Benches tend to appear at the margins of public squares, to the side of walking paths, in parks, or as in this case, in front of housing buildings. They shape the space as recreational, while creating the opportunity to connect with the surroundings. Furthermore, benches in residential areas, by their mere existence within a micro-environment, create a greater value of the same functions. Repetition in the conversational exchanges establish and solidify connections, moreover, build local communities.
[Abstract from a conversation with my grandma.]
Grandma: Somehow the respect towards the elderly used to be a little different. Now the young people…There are young people I admire...
There is a woman with 3 children (in the neighbourhood). When the boy sees you, ‘Good day, how are you doing?’, he will shake your hand and ask you how you are, wish you good night, etc. And the mother takes care of them herself, she is a divorced woman, but takes care of her children by herself. Hats off to her. She has worked on their upbringing so well.
...and there are those who are careless, leaving their children on the street. Whatever they learn, they learn from the street, and that’s all. They don’t care to discipline them at home.
Mom: Seems like, the behaviour of young people fascinates you, or rather their behaviour towards the elderly, as well as how they behave in society as a whole.
Grandma: Now if I go further back to my youth, it was very different then. People then really respected each other..
Mom: Genuinely.
Grandma: …it came from their heart.
Mom: Yes, but don't forget that you lived in the village, you didn't know how they treated each other in the city. The village is a small community and people used to respect each other.
The existence of the so familiar bench in an Eastern-European (and for the most part particularly Bulgarian) context dates back to life in the countryside, where the occupation of the common man was work in the fields. The hours of physical labour were isolating from society, the workers didn’t practise any communication actively or receive any information whatsoever. This lack of active communication gave birth to the bench at the front of every house, where one can sit after work hours, observe the passers-by and ‘catch victims’ to answer their thousands of questions.5 This functionality of the bench conditioned it as a space for connecting and information exchange.
The bench was shaped as a vehicle for communication, which creates freedom both in its physical form as well as in its locality, easily changing its location whenever necessary. If a house is away from the main flow of people, the bench moves to the main roads where people pass by. The reason for this phenomenon is that the bench is a self-made creation by the (Bulgarian) commoner, an extension of the body and a tool for expression of the national mentality.
In the contemporary urban environment, the same bench is still to be found in front of almost every apartment building, visually contrasting to the predominant image of the Soviet housing architecture, while at the same time existing in resonance with it. This repeatability in a typology signals for a mental prototype6 which can be traced back to Bulgarian 19th and 20th century literature, where the appearance of the bench established its symbolic value. ‘In the short story collection ‘Under the Monastery Vine’, Elin Pelin places the narrator and his interlocutors sitting around a table under the shadows of the vine in the monastery courtyard. Ivan Vazov, the patriarch of Bulgarian literature [...], in the novel ‘Under the Yoke’ (1894) describes a key scene, where the family gathers to dine in the courtyard of the house around a table under the vines, surrounded by lilacs.’7 These examples showcase the bench as more than just a space for information exchange or storytelling. In this case the act of storytelling is more in the sense of nurture, creating a safe space, reconnecting and preserving culture. It reveals itself as a form of national identity, reinforced during the Soviet era– something one can define by analysing identity in the context of trauma.
‘Bulgarian Revival residential architecture from the 19th century, which was influenced by the East of the Ottoman State and the Mediterranean climate, is recognized as national Bulgarian, because it was built, financed and inhabited by Bulgarians. The panel residential buildings, the architecture of which came from the West through the Soviet Union, has not yet been accepted as national Bulgarian architecture, even though it was designed, built, financed and inhabited by Bulgarians.’8
This has to do with the different mental and social experiences attached to either of the architectural concepts. The Revival architectural elements, like the bench itself, were indeed influenced by the Ottoman Empire, an oppressive and destructive five-century lasting state, that deeply scarred the Bulgarian nation. However, those elements were redefined towards self-identification, as it also (in the case of the bench) created space for storytelling, and with that, for community building and preservation of culture. In contrast, Soviet panel architecture was also brought through an oppressive regime, but its purpose was to further dehumanise, oppress and eradicate communities, treating them as a common mass. This sense of lacking identity forms a traumatic experience (which was only pushed to the side through political propaganda) and forces the individual to seek methods for escapism. The bench reappears in the cities, at the entrance of panel blocks, and so it is reestablished as the extension of the self. ‘The identity of the residents of Sofia9 is realised through the aestheticization of the place, [...] the creation of networks of places in the panel neighbourhoods that create a positive emotional experience. The memory of the socialist recent past, represented in the architectural heritage, is blocked.’10
On a fresh summer evening, after school hours, I would walk with friends home, talking and laughing on the way and wishing for the moment to never end. We would sit on the bench and go on for hours on end, filling the air with chatter and laughter, with the joy of our youth and innocence. We would sit there until we eventually got up and went our separate ways.
In contemporary Eastern European society the bench is recognized as an archetypal space among the elderly demographic, and there are a few reasons leading to that common impression. One, of course, is the fact that the elderly have either experienced themselves or have the closest relation to life in the countryside and the purely functional use of the bench for information. But the second argument I draw is the obvious correlation with the initial reasoning for its existence– isolation and lack of information. A major difference with the West is that elderly homes are not as commonly accepted, so most people at an old age live by themselves and rely on their environment and community for mental, emotional or physical support.
Grandma: And now, we call on the phone:
-Dènke, when are we going out again?
-Just a little bit more, until it gets warmer outside, ‘cause the bench is still cold.
So we're looking forward to the weather getting warmer. We feel the need for the bench. Then other people also gather around that bench, other citizens stop there to rest. And that way you get in touch with more people, and your day becomes lighter. [...] Your life gets diversified, and you can get some information here and there– someone comes from the city centre, let's say, something happened in the centre…
The state of isolation is reinforced by the lack of understanding for new information sources, further restricting the perception of contemporary society at its rapid pace. In that sense the main information exchange for elderly is still accomplished through the bench. The knowledge acquired by talking to people, either regularly gathering around, or passing by once, is conditional, solely restricted to locality. It is mostly dependent on the existing neighbourhood communities, which further narrows down the information range to social class, education and possibly age. In this sense, the context of ‘the contemporary information age’ redefines the bench from an information source, to an echo chamber, recirculating knowledge among the participants and reinforcing their preexisting beliefs through recognition.
Grandma: When we are on the bench, we discuss different topics, and everyone has their own opinion. Opinions differ. And at the end, someone will say, "Well, we talked and talked, but she was most correct, I liked her words the most", a judgement is given at the end.
[...]
Often we compare the past with the present. Back in the day it was such and such..That is what we did then, but now they don't. Perhaps the current way of living has an effect on people’s behaviour.[...] I believe that in the past all we have done was positive. And now, there are many positive things but also many negative ones which overcame the positive with time. The times are such that the negative overpowers and people continue to live with it as part of their life.
These preexisting perceptions of reality are rooted in the Soviet era, through the exercised propaganda at the time. This monumentalizes the bench in the present tense as an artefact defining the Post-Soviet condition, a capsule of the regime existing in and reflecting on a new socio-political environment.
However, that is conditioned by the generation currently inhabiting this space. Throughout this text I’ve reflected mostly on how I see the bench, from the position of the observed, the young generation which never endured socialism, and the one that is an inseparable part of the rapid information flow. The bench for those is detached from any meaning– it is purely an architectural piece, part of the public space, a place to inhabit. But I wonder then, would this be the last generation to ever sit on the bench, to observe the passers-by, to connect with the small community as a way to connect to the fast-passing world? I wonder if the easy access to technology we have would completely eradicate the need for community in the physical space, abandoning the bench into decay.
I packed my belongings in a suitcase, called a taxi to pick me up and left the apartment building. My grandma was there, sitting on the bench with others from the neighbourhood. She came to hug me and wish me safe travel, and all the best and..I had to go. I loaded my suitcase in the car, got on, looked out the window and waved goodbye. She waved back goodbye, looking at me from the bench.
[...] I think to myself, this is the last time in which she truly perceives me. From now on I am just another stranger, passing by the bench, and she can only observe me through her own position there. And maybe one day I would be back, taking her place, trying to keep up with the fast-paced society I am no longer part of.
© Studio Polina Slavova 2025
