Useless, defunct and more than a little surreal, ‘thomassons’ are the remnants of architecture and infrastructure left behind during demolition to leave behind a ghostly imprint of the past. These architectural relics are like scars: evidence of damage that never fully healed. Some passersby never even notice the stairs that end in a brick wall, the outlines of buildings that no longer exist, the doors that open to the air many stories above ground level. But for others, they have a sort of melancholy romance as a physical, tangible connection to bygone eras in a rapidly changing world, even if that ‘bygone era’ was just a few years ago.

Spotting these anomalies can feel like the discovery of hidden portals, as if you could stand in front of them and magically transport yourself right out of the space-time continuum if you just had the password or the secret handshake. For others, they’re like glitches in the matrix, just out of place enough to give you a momentary sensation of your surroundings being not quite real. An intrusion of the digital world into the physical.

So maybe it’s not surprising that communities have developed around finding, documenting and appreciating these urban oddities. The word ‘thomasson,’ if you’re not aware, was coined by Japanese artist Akasegawa Genpei in the ’80s, referencing a basketball player with a useless position on his team. He was a bit of a pioneer in the world of thomasson-spotting, archiving the vestigial objects he found around Japan in a magazine column, and then a 1985 book titled Chogeijutsu Tomason.

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The book was published in the United States in 2009, bringing the phenomenon stateside. But search for ‘thomasson’ on Instagram, Flickr, tumblr, Facebook and other social media platforms and you’ll see that, for whatever reason, this hobby remains most popular in Japan.

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Akasegawa referred to thomassons as ‘hyper-art,’ explaining that they may not have been created with artistic expression in mind, but nevertheless, they’re more artistic than intentional art itself. Indeed, they have more than a little in common with Dadaism, the early 20th century avant-garde art movement that “rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest.”

Would the construction workers who are ordered to tear down or alter part of a structure without erasing all evidence that it ever existed think of themselves as artists? Probably not, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t. When they become self-aware, does the whole movement threaten to become a mockery of itself? Hard to say, though it’s kind of fun to imagine. The idea of cities becoming more maze-like than ever, full of intentional dead ends, is either frustrating or delightful, depending on your particular perspective. You’d have new and creative excuses for being late to work.

For Akesegawa, a true thomasson meets two criteria: it must be totally and completely useless, and also regularly maintained, which adds another layer of absurdity to the object’s continued existence. That means ruins and abandonments don’t really count. The objects must be folded into a newer incarnation of their surroundings as if nobody could be bothered to remove them altogether, and possibly cleaned or repaired on a regular basis. Demolish that section of spiraling stairs that lead to the sky? Nonsense! Put a fence around it instead!

In our era of rapid urbanization and development, it’s easy to see why thomassons are so intriguing. Cities change so quickly, it can seem like the realities we’ve lived in during our own lifetimes have already been lost, despite how little time has actually passed. And who doesn’t dream of reconnecting with those old familiar environments, whose memories may already be fading in our minds?

Smart, well-designed urban seating encourages more interaction with the cities we live in and with each other, infusing them with vibrancy and a sense of connection. It’s even cooler when it’s built right into a park or sidewalk as a multifunctional element to add some sculptural visual interest, delineate different zones or offer opportunities for fitness and play.

Just a Black Box: Furniture Transforms Into Kiosk

A cube of semi-private seating by day, ‘Just a Black Box’ by Max Boano and Jonas Prismontas transforms into a kiosk for commercial or public use at night (or whenever else it’s desired.) The box elevates itself on its own hidden hydraulic columns to become a customizable space that can be used for retail, cafes, bike repair, selling tickets or even as a mini theater.

3 Urban Hammock Installations

Comfy hammocks come to public spaces in various forms to create some of the most nap-worthy urban furniture you’ll ever see, including a series of nets strung over the grass by The Chartered Institute of Housing, bright blue hammocks inserted into a void in a promenade along Paprocany Lake in Poland, and re-purposed fire hoses hung from a steel grid in Copenhagen.

Vanke Cloud City by Lab D+H

Vanke Cloud City is a mixed-use development project in Guangzhou, China boasting a series of creative public seating strategies by Lab D+H. The Cloud Line is a continuous tubular steel structure offering benches, monkey bars, parallel bars and other uses, while Cloud Seat is a modular set of interacted spaces made of perforated steel plate, with vertically stacked seating.

Meeting Bowls for NYC

Small groups can get together and chat face-to-face in a comfortable, breezy space with ‘Meeting Bowls’ by the Madrid-based design firm mmmm… in partnership with the Times Square Alliance. The urban furniture installation was situated in the center of Manhattan’s busiest plaza in summer 2011to facilitate interactions and dialogue between friends and strangers alike. The base of each bowl gently rocks to imitate the sensation of floating.

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The City Is Your Living Room 15 Modern Street Furniture Designs

Despite the crowded sidewalks, the cacophony of traffic and the sky-high cost of living, there’s no denying the romanticism and sheer energy of big cities like New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. And within those cities, even in the most run-down back alleys, there’s a certain gritty beauty. See the qualities and aesthetics that inspire fierce loyalty in urbanites brought to everyday objects in these 13 cool city-shaped and urban-inspired designs.

City Water: Bottles with Neighborhood Maps

(images via: samal design)

Product designer Dzmitry Samal came up with the concept for ‘City Water’, a water bottle printed with a map of the city from which the water was sourced. Considering that many bottled water companies aren’t exactly forthcoming about their sources – even using terminology that calls springs to mind, despite the fact that the water came from municipal sources – a bottle like this would provide a refreshing splash of honesty.

Urban Metrobowls: Street-Shaped Metal Serving Bowls

(images via: roije)

Organic yet structured, city grids can be quite visually interesting, so it’s nice to see them put proudly on display. Designer Frederik Joije creates free-form serving bowls shaped like the relatively rounded city of Amsterdam, and also the elongated fish-like Manhattan island.

Cut-Out Maps by Karen O’Leary

(images via: studio kmo)

Artist Karen O’Leary painstakingly cuts amazingly detailed maps of New York, Paris and London into delicate paper webs. O’Leary removes all land and water so that only the streets are left. “These maps reveal the density and delicacy of a modern city with a single element and infinite subtleties.”

Urban Drift Desk Organizer

(images via: mocoloco)

This desk organizer by Rob Southcott is shaped like a miniature skyline,  an ideal addition to the desk of a proud urbanite. “This small anonymous city skyline is a useful space to store a variety of day to day objects. Placing items in amongst the cites skyscrapers helps you organize and store your belongings.”

Cats Attack! Scratching Post

(images via: think geek)

Any cat can become the star of your own little B-movie with the geektastic Cats Attack! scratching post, shaped like three urban towers in a cityscape. ThinkGeek even has quite an amazing little story to go with the product. “The year was 1954, and the top three concerns in the United States were as follows: Atom bombs destroying our cities, communists turning our citizenry into mindless zombies, and atomic zombie cats destroying our cities. Though you may not find records of it in the local newspapers (it was classified, hello?), cats were herded into great camps for study, just in case one or more of them mutated into horrifying beasts.”

“These cats, embittered by their experiences, never forgot the mistreatment they received. So now, they watch. Always vigilant. They wait for their opportunity to attack. They wait and train. They skulk and sneak, climb and leap, slash bite and scratch. Often, they practice their scratching with any available vertical surface – usually your furniture. This practice often destroys the things you love. Cats don’t care. It’s all part of their master plan.”

Power Strip with a Mini City

(images via: spoon-tamago)

This is one power strip that you’d want to display, not hide away. Topped with a miniature Japanese street, complete with a delicate little tree, the power strip was created for the 2010 graduate show at the Kyoto University of Art and Design.

Robber Baron Clock by Studio Job

(images via: moss gallery)

Referring to the bankers and industrialists who played big roles in the industrial revolution at the end of the 19th century, the ‘Robber Baron’ series by Studio Job includes this awesome clock, a model of a mansion ‘supported by gilded oil barrels’.

Historic City View Handkerchiefs by MUJI

(images via: muji.us)

Wear your love for the world’s greatest cities around your neck or in your pocket. Japan’s MUJI design offers handkerchiefs printed with historic maps of Tokyo, New York and Paris from the 19th century.

City-Shaped Ring Designs by Phillipe Tournaire

(images via: phillipe tournaire)

Wear your love for architecture on your finger with platinum or gold diamond rings shaped like buildings. Parisian jeweler Philippe Tournaire recreates structures from around the world including his home city, Moscow, New York and more, and has even made replicas of entire city blocks.

Metropolis: Household Objects Shaped Like Skyscrapers

(images via: design milk)

Design firm Lladro offers a series of functional objects including mirrors, boxes, vases and lamps all in the shape of buildings inspired by Moorish, Art Deco and other styles of architecture.

Children’s House-Shaped Blocks

(images via: gretel home)

These simple stacking blocks from Japan’s Landscape Products are so much cooler and more elegant than plastic building blocks, and they’ll tempt parents into playing, too.

City Landscape Pen Stands by Muji

(images via: muji.us)

This cute wooden cityscape functions as both eye-catching decor and a pen-and-stationery stand. MUJI offers the choice of three iconic cities: Tokyo, Paris and New York.

Miniature Cities Within Cities by EVOL

(images via: evoltaste)

Berlin-based street artist EVOL transforms electric boxes, planters and other mundane objects seen around cities worldwide into fascinating miniature metropolises of their own. Appearing in the most unexpected places, EVOL’s tiny buildings even have tiny little curtains in the windows, and in some cases, miniature graffiti on the walls.