Bench was made at the time I first worked with stone in Shikoku following the very productive time I spent there in 1956–57 finding the stones for the UNESCO garden in Paris. Bench thus recalls an earlier time—say in the 1940s—when I was first interested in such matters as a place to sit. This piece has its own validity as a link as well as being itself a precursor of the travertine bench nearby, which I made in Italy in 1966.