A bike rack is not meant to be a work of art. A bike rack is meant to provide a safe place for which to leave your bike.
That’s why it makes us squint our eyes, angle our eyebrows and smash our heads ruthlessly off the nearest wooden surface whenever someone manages to mess up the construction of one of these oh-so-basic structures.
See, there’s a tried and tested design behind most bike racks. The U-shaped piece of metal that you see sticking out of the ground around the United Kingdom and beyond? It’s not pretty, no, but it works. It does what we need.
What we don’t need is random pieces of metal sticking out from our pavements that serve not as a bike rack, nor anything else – which is why we’ve been slowly shaking our heads upon hearing that after building a bike rack unusable for more than a couple of bikes, London Council are now trying to pass their failure off as “public art”.
Now, maybe we’re missing something. So, please take a look at the photograph below and let us know whether or not you think it looks like a piece of art. It’s no Damien Hirst, is it?