Integrating Seating into Public Art: New Considerations

By Matthew Bowden

1 min read

Feb 18, 2026

Across the hundreds of fantastic public art projects uploaded to CODAworx, a quiet pattern has emerged which has become increasingly common, that is, the integration of seating into public art. Not just thoughtful benches constructed around a piece, or benches which are artful in themselves, but public art projects in which a place to sit is an extricable part of the piece itself.

By integrating seating directly into their forms, artists dissolve the boundary between sculpture and setting, transforming passive viewing into active participation. This bench is a direct dialogue with the creator and those who experience a work; an invitation to interact with a piece in a specific way.

In doing so, they challenge the outdated notion that beauty and utility occupy separate spheres. When a work of art offers comfort, shelter, or a social anchor, it demonstrates that function need not diminish aesthetic ambition—in fact, it can deepen it. Integrated seating can blur the strict delineation between artwork and environment, embedding creative expression into the rhythms of daily life. The result is a more democratic model of public art: one that does not stand apart from its audience, but supports it, literally and figuratively, and invites members of the public to pause, linger, and inhabit the art rather than simply pass by it.

Here are six strong examples of public art which integrates seating in new and exciting ways: