“Escalator Slide”

“Corporate austerity meets playground pleasures” is how artist/designer Julijonas Urbonas describes his 2020 public art installation “Escalator Slide.” Located in Live Square, a business and residential center in Vilnius, Lithuania, the mirror-polished stainless-steel sculpture takes the form of a static escalator from the front — and a slide from the back. Commissioned by real estate developer The Eika Group, the interactive work of art has been welcoming “white-collar workers for a moment of escape from their sedentary daily routine” since 2020. Just the thing for “office-chair-ridden backs,” the slide, Urbonas suggests, becomes “the gasping-for-air replacement of a coffee break.”