Trafalgar Square Shows How to Reuse Pedestals Where Statues Once Stood

Baltimore has taken down four statues in the last week because they were of Confederate figures, Kriston Capps argues this gives the city an opportunity to borrow a great idea from London's Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar Square has long had an empty pedestal where a statue of King William IV was supposed to stand, but the city never got around to budgeting the money for that statue, now the site is home to a different kind of project. "The Fourth Plinth, a program conceived by the Royal Society of Arts in the 1990s, invites contemporary artists to figure out something new to do with the spot every year," Capps writes. Capps argues that the city has an opportunity: "Now Baltimore’s got four empty plinths, each one of which could serve as an empty stage for the city’s artists."