ArcelorMittal ORBIT
The ArcelorMittal Orbit is a 115 metres (377 ft) high observation tower under construction in the Olympic Park in Stratford, London. The steel sculpture will be Britain's largest piece of public art, and is intended to be a permanent, lasting legacy of London's hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympics, assisting in the post-Olympics regeneration of the Stratford area. Sited between the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatics Centre, it will allow visitors to view the whole Olympic Park from two observation platforms.
Orbit was designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond. Announced on 31 March 2010, the tower is expected to be completed by December 2011 at the latest. The project came about after Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell decided in 2008 that the Olympic Park needed "something extra". Designers were asked for ideas for an "Olympic tower" of at least 100 metres (330 ft), and Orbit was the unanimous choice from various proposals considered.
The project is expected to cost £19.1m, with £16m of that coming from the involvement of Britain's richest man, the steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of the ArcelorMittal steel company, with the balance of £3.1m coming from the London Development Agency. The official name of the sculpture, "ArcelorMittal Orbit", combines the name of Mittal's company, as chief sponsor, with Orbit, the original working title of Kapoor and Balmond's design.
Both Kapoor and Balmond believe Orbit represents a radical advance in the architectural field of combining sculpture and structural engineering, and believe that it combines both stability and instability in a work that visitors can engage with and experience, via an incorporated spiral walkway.
The structure has been both praised and criticised for its bold design, while it has also been criticised as a vanity project, of questionable lasting use or merit as a public art project.
Below is the construction sequence predicted to continue into 2012, currently in stage 2 of the central pilon.
ANISH KAPOOR
Anish Kapoor is an Indian born British sculptor who designed the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower, in collaboration with architect Cecil Balmond. Though not an architect himself, he has worked extensively alongside architects and engineers throughout his career, more so during his later works. Many of Kapoors pieces are very large, blurring the boundaries between sculpture and architecture. Kapoor himself insists that his work is neither purely sculptural nor architectural. His work is revered the world over, and he has picked up many prizes for his work, including the Turner prize.
Kapoor began his career as a sculptor at the age of 17 and has never looked back since. The following is Kapoors own reasoning for his decision to become a sculptor:
I didnt grow up thinking I would be an artist, but when I decided at about 17, that was that. I didnt imagine for a second Id be anything else. Ive often asked myself whether something or someone motivated my decision. I dont know that anyone ever makes a rational decision about such things, but I felt from the very start I was going to be a sculptor. It seemed to me that all the great advances in modern thinking had been in the tree-dimensional form.
Kapoors early works relied on powder pigments covering the work and floor, and were executed in 2D paintings as well as 3D sculptures. His inspiration for these works comes from the coloured powdered spices in the Indian markets from when he was a child. His later works are made of solid, quarried stone, and play themes of dualities (earth-sky, matter-spirit, lightness-darkness, visible-invisible, conscious-unconscious, male-female and body-mind). His most recent works are mirror-like, reflecting or distorting the viewer and surroundings. Red wax is also part of his current repertoire, which coagulates like spilt blood in the corner of the sculptures.
According to Kapoor, one of his key aims is to produce work that bears no trace of his hand, items that look as though they could have formed naturally.
There is a sense of deception or question in the work, that it appears to say one thing and is another, explains Anish.
The deeper things in life may be told by the real, but they may also be told by the illusionary. It may be that illusion actually goes deeper than reality. Without being too pompous about it, its one of the poetic questions around the nature of objects. We live in a world of physical things that we understand in quite deterministic terms. Art introduces a kind of ambiguity; it says, Well maybe, and maybe not. It points, if you like, to an alternate reality.
When asked about his design for the Arcelor Mittal Orbit Tower, he commented that its design is opposite to that of a traditional pyramidal tower shape. The design is an abstraction of the five Olympic rings, and is intended to be flowing and invoke feelings of instability. The tower is red, which is Kapoors signature colour as it is used in many of his pieces, including his earliest powder pigment works.
TIMELINE
The timeline shows key dates running down the centre coupled with sketched development diagrams running parallel.
The inception of the Olympic Tower idea came in October 2008 through Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Olympics Minister Tessa Jowel.
The design competition held in 2009 called for designs for an "Olympic tower", receiving around 50 submissions in total.
Kapoor and Balmonds linear development of the proposal started 2009 and drew reference from the Tower of Babal and Vladimir Tatlin's Tower.
After discussions with the Indain steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, he agreed to fund £16m through his company ArcelorMittal.
Construction is currently underway on the main pylon and is making scheduled progress.
The Skylon was a futuristic-looking vertical steel structure located by the Thames in London, built in 1951 for the Festival of Britain. It appeared to be floating above the ground
A popular joke of the period was that, like the British economy of 1951, "It had no visible means of support".
ACTORS
POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT
Around October Boris Johnson and Tessa Jowell (British Labour Party Politician) the Stratford, London, site being used as the Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympics needed "something extra", to "distinguish the east London skyline" and "arouse the curiosity and wonder of Londoners and visitors"
COMMERCIAL INVOLVEMENT
A FLUKE 45-second chat in a cloakroom at the World Economic Forum in Davos spawned Britain's tallest sculpture, which will be built for the Olympics.
The chat, between London mayor Boris Johnson and the richest man in Europe, Lakshmi Mittal, persuaded the billionaire steel magnate to pay for the materials to construct the tower. According to The Age an Australian news website.
Mittal said he was immediately interested in the project after he remembered the excitement that surrounded the announcement that London had won the Olympic bid. He saw it as an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy for London, showcase the "unique qualities of steel" and play a role in the regeneration of Stratford.
ARTISTIC INVOLVEMENT
A design competition held in 2009 called for designs for an "Olympic tower", receiving around 50 submissions in all. Johnson has said his early concept for the project was something more modest than Orbit, something along the lines of "a kind of 21st century Trajan's Column", but this was dropped when more daring ideas were received.
THE JURY
· Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate gallery
· Julia Peyton-Jones, director of the Serpentine Gallery
· Hans-Ulrich Obrist, also of the Serpentine Gallery
· Sarah Weir of the Olympic Delivery Authority
Various people representing the artistic, cultural community were involved in the selection process. Though for most part of the selection this jury and the project was kept hidden from the public.
CRITICS AND MEDIA
The orbit gathered immediate attention amongst architects, artists and other critics. One issue that remained was whether the cost of the project was justifiable. Another issue was how would the general public relate to the form and design of the orbit. Was it too far fetched? Was it exciting?
Structural engineers and Arup ™ Consultancy
Though Anish Kapoor was the main figurehead behind this project, structural engineer will play a major role in the construction of the project. Structural engineer Cecil Balmond of Arup will be collaborating with Anish Kapoor to take the project forward. Balmond is the head of the Arup consultancy's Advanced Geometry Unit (AGU). The AGU is described as a "quasi-academic research group which blends science, maths and architectural design to 'explore the impossible' in terms of structural engineering".
Kapoor is a Turner Prize winning sculptor. At the launch of the design for the Olympic sculpture he revealed, I am deeply honoured to be invited to undertake this challenging commission,"
"I am particularly attracted to it because of the opportunity to involve members of the public in a particularly close and personal way. It is the commission of a lifetime."
LONDON DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
Though most of the funding is provided by Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of ArcelorMittal steet, £ 3.1 million pounds is being funded by the agency.
PROS AND CONS
The controversies revolving around the ArcelorMittal Orbit can be organised into sub-catagories. The main questions revolving around the project are; Does the scultpure represent the British culture and will it be recognised and associated with Britain and the olympics?, In terms of the current economic climate, what are the imediate impacts of the tower? and will there be any long term financial benefits?
Slated as an ego boost for Mayor of London Boris Johnson, the project will have a perminant legacy of Johnson and the 2012 Olympics.
Nick-named the "Hubble Bubble" due to its resemblance to a hashish pipe, or water bong, the above image from the media titled "King Bong" pokes at Johnson and the project.
SELECTED CLIENT LIST_
Royal Crown
Grow upppp
Globe Company
The World
Blue Birdy
Great Puzzle
Emo Heart
Solid Te's
Asian Red
Plaster Me
Green Tree
Shop Shop
REFERENCES
Manchester Art Gallery, March - June 2011, Anish Kapoor: Flashback Exhibition
Architecture Journal, 11th March, 2011 - "In Pictures: Orbit tower rises over Olympic Park"
Metro Newspaper, 7th March, 2011 - "A Sculptor's Love Affair with Illusion"
The Guardian, 3rd August, 2009 - "B of the Bang Sculpture Meets A Sad End"
The Age, World News, 2nd April, 2010 - "Sculpture adds dramatic twist to London Olympics"
The Sunday Times, 11th April, 2011 - "Nude Antony Gormley giant lost Olympic statue race"
London Evening Standard, 26th October, 2008 "Piffle Tower may rise at Olympic park"
London2012.com/games/venues/olympic-stadium
ArcelorMittal.com
- Location Map, Proposal Images
AnishKapoor.com
- Background Info, Images
BBC.co.uk/news
"Anish Kapoor chosen for landmark 2012 sculpture"
"Olympic volleyball athletes could quit University of Bath"
London.gov.uk
"The ArcelorMittal Orbit"
RESEARCH GROUP
Aayu Malhotra (Actors Research)
Jonny May (Anish Kapoor/Recognisable Landmark)
Caroline Manson (Representing British Culture)
Adrian Calitz (Negatives of the Recession)
Laura Hayes (Cost Benefits)
Seb Smart (Webmaster/Location/Timeline)
CONTACT US
REPRESENTING BRITISH CULTURE
Whatever artistic merit the construction may have, if it fails to appeal to the mass public it fails as an installation. The complex and intellectually stimulating nature of Anish Kapoors work may fail to carry across to not only a British but Global audience. Therefore, despite Kapoors significant artistic pedigree an alternative traditional design may have been more preferable.
It is unclear how the sculpture may look in a post-Olympic context as many of the buildings will be removed after the games. With such a strong form, so closely linked to the Olympics, it may look out of place after the Games are over and it no longer relates to the current usage of the site.
When West Ham United football team inherit the Olympic Stadium there is a high likelihood that there will be a repeat of the B of the Bang fiasco, where a sculpture commissioned for athletics is found to be unloved by the type of audience that football attracts. The B of the Bang was commissioned for the 2002 Commonwealth Games to explain that a race does not start at the bang of a starting pistol, but at the b of the bang. The sculpture was later ignored by the Manchester City football crowd, who moved into the site, because of it had no relevance to football.
Due to an austere government such an expensive aesthetic commission brings up many controversies. It could be argued that the sculpture only adds to the atmosphere of its environment and not the quality of the stadium, training or sports teams, therefore money could be better spent elsewhere. It has been recently reported in the news that facilities elsewhere in the country and the UK Olympic team budgets have been cut. For example, Bath University promised the UK beach volleyball team an indoor court, but due to lack of funding this has not come to fruition. Other reports have suggested that some Olympic teams may not even have enough funding to send athletes to compete in the Games. Whilst the targeted coporate funding from Lashmi Mittal is paying for the majority of the structure it is arguable that corporate capital leverage is a finite resource, and the £16 million in funding from Lakshmi Mittal could have been leveraged for other projects (such as structural steels for the stadiums).
However, at 115m tall, 22m higher than New Yorks Statue of Liberty, it could be said that Kapoors sculpture could be recognised around the world long after the Games are over. It could be argued that London has no single landmark that sums up the whole of the city, but instead relies on the whole skyline, hence this sculpture could be to London, as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.
The cultural capital that the art installation will bring to the area will form a synergy with the economic regeneration of the area as part of the Games legacy. This relationship will hopefully create a more effective end result than either process, if taken individually.
In relation to the previous point, the presence of the tower as a tourist attraction will help bring non-sports related revenue to the area which is in danger of becoming focused solely on sports and sports legacy. The sculpture will remain there as a cultural attraction for sightseers, acting as a revenue stream once the Games have moved on.
The cost arguments, while compelling in the current economic climate ignore the fact that art and other cultural heritages are one of Britains leading exports and attractions. Therefore a large imposing and cutting edge sculpture by a British and Commonwealth artist serves as an advert for this important and vibrant industry.
