Street furniture

Street furniture are objects installed on streets and roads for various purposes. Examples include:

benches
bollards
post boxes
phone boxes
streetlamps
traffic lights
traffic signs
direction signs
outside lavatories
fountains
memorials

Table of contents

1 General Descriptions
2 Other information
3 External Links

General Descriptions

A bench is essentially a chair made for more than one persons, usually found mostly in the central part of any settlement such as plazas and parks. They are often provided by the local councils or contributors to serve as a place to rest and admire the view.
Bollards are posts usually of concrete or wood, with the purpose of preventing the movement of vehicles onto sidewalks or grass etc.
Post boxes are found universally in the world, and range from the round pillar style found in Japan and the U.K (the two feature a difference in that the Japanese version has a round lid while the U.K version is flat) to the well known rectangular blue boxes of the United States.
Phone boxes or telephone booths are prominent in most cities around the world, and while ranging drastically in the amount of cover they offer users, e.g. many only cover the phone itself while others are full booths, are instantly recognisable, however the wide-spread use of mobile phones has resulted in a decrease in their numbers.
Streetlamps are designed with the purpose to illuminate the surrounding area at night, serving not only as a deterrent of sorts to criminals but more importantly to allow people to see where they're going. The colour of streetlamps' bulbs differ, but generally are white and yellow.
Traffic lights usually include three colours, that is green to represent "go", Amber to inform drivers that the colour will alternate shortly and red to tell drivers to stop. These can be mounted on poles or hang from wires with both styles serving their purpose.
Direction signs tell the reader the way to a location, although the information can be represented in variety of ways from a diagram to written instructions. Usually mounted on poles, more recently illumination has started to be added to them in order to aid night-time users.
Outside lavatories are used by males. They can be quite decorative.

Other information

Street furniture itself has become as much a part of many nations identity as dialects and national events, so much so that one can usually recognise the location by their design; famous examples of this include:

The red telephone booths of Britain
The residential post boxes of the United States
and, The streetlamps of Paris.

The Tiergarten park in Berlin has a collection of antique streetlamps from around the world (gas or electric?).

You may wish to visit the somewhat related topics of:

External Links

Helsinki Street Museum