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-   -   LONDON | Olympic Hubble Bubble | 115m / 377ft (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=180245)

FerrariEnzo Mar 31, 2010 8:05 PM

LONDON | Olympic Hubble Bubble | 115m / 377ft
 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7083022.ece

The sculptor Anish Kapoor is to erect the largest and most ambitious public artwork in the country in east London: a startling red tower that looks rather like a mangled roller coaster.

It is too early to tell what the world will call this £19.1 million, 115m tall feat of technological and industrial wizadry but if Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has anything to do with it it will be the “Hubble-Bubble” after the tobacco smoking contraptions popular in the Middle East and North Africa.

Kapoor beat off competition from the artist Antony Gormley and the architects Caruso St John to win a contest run by the Mayor to find yet another “iconic symol” for the city and the 2012 Olympic park.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...60_703334a.jpg

Aleks Mar 31, 2010 8:26 PM

mehh... its whatever. maybe it'll grow on me, london has a history of wacky architecture which overtime looks good.

i wouldnt have chosen this personally, but whatev.

Bigtime Mar 31, 2010 10:04 PM

Interesting, I would assume they will need to get going on this pretty soon to have it ready in time for the games?

FerrariEnzo Mar 31, 2010 10:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigtime (Post 4775303)
Interesting, I would assume they will need to get going on this pretty soon to have it ready in time for the games?

Mostly steel latice as opposed to poured concrete floors and office space so it should be easy to assemble once the steel is made to spec... but yeah you would think as much.

djvandrake Apr 1, 2010 5:22 AM

Eeeesh. :rolleyes: It's art so have at it. But, I'm not terribly fond of it.

colemonkee Apr 1, 2010 6:16 AM

It's a 450-ft. hookah.

youngregina Apr 1, 2010 10:54 AM

i just, dont get it. what is the artist trying to say? unity? peace? the 2012 games are going to be a mangled wreck?

Nowhereman1280 Apr 1, 2010 1:11 PM

Not as cool as the bean:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...om_east%27.jpg
wikipedia

Its strange that this contraption doesn't seem to reflect (no pun intended) the simplicity of any of his previous artwork. Most of his art explores the reflection of light and this seems to explore how many weird ways we can weld steel together in.

The North One Apr 1, 2010 3:07 PM

eww.. fugly......

Busy Bee Apr 1, 2010 3:37 PM

Never realized how much the Bean reminds me of the spaceship from Flight of Navigator until now.

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/u...ship_in_sf.gif
*

Bedhead Apr 1, 2010 3:39 PM

My first reaction was that it looks like something out of War of the Worlds.

Very menacing, without having any real drama. I can hardly believe it was done by the same person that did the Bean. It would be interesting to see the other designs. I can't believe that none of them was better.

It reminds me of the old joke, "What's big, red and eats rocks? A big red rock eater". Only in this case, it's "What's big, red, and acts as an observation tower? A big, red observation tower".

NYguy Apr 1, 2010 3:55 PM

Saw it in the news. I think it has the potential to be a lasting icon. I think it's supposed to be 377 ft.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti....html?ITO=1490

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...x476_popup.jpg


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...x503_popup.jpg


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/...25_634x597.jpg

Calgarian Apr 1, 2010 4:14 PM

Barf!

NYguy Apr 1, 2010 4:24 PM

Reminds me of this...

http://felixsalmon.com/pics/thinkbig.jpghttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...60_703334a.jpg
felixsalmon.com

canucklehead2 Apr 3, 2010 7:20 PM

Blargh! First the awful Olympic stadium design and now this? London may go down for having birthed some of the most butt-ugly architecture of the millennium at this rate! Almost a complete 180 from Beijing!

FerrariEnzo Apr 3, 2010 8:10 PM

Can a mod edit the thread title, official height is 377 ft. Thanks.

bbeliko Apr 4, 2010 2:31 AM

Yuck!!!!!!!
I really dig the stadium, but this thing's just horrible.

CraftTeutonic Apr 4, 2010 6:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYguy (Post 4776553)

look at that smug motherf*cker. he actually thinks this looks good.

FerrariEnzo Apr 4, 2010 1:23 PM

^I was thinking the same...

NYguy Apr 4, 2010 1:25 PM

Well, I'm in the minority on this one, I kind of like it. They should build something like this at Coney Island...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ondon-olympics
Is the Orbit anything more than a folly on an Olympic scale?
It's the most extravagant example of the idea that a huge, strange object can affect tens of thousands.
This could be the point at which the idea stops working


Rowan Moore
The Observer, Sunday 4 April 2010

Quote:

It's dangerous to compare it with the Statue of Liberty. The boosters of ArcelorMittal Orbit, the £19m, 115-metre tower to be built on the London Olympic site, announce it will be taller than New York's great green lady, but it's unlikely to be as eloquent.

Is the ArcelorMittal steel company, one wonders, as great a cause to be celebrated as liberty? Well, no, but the aim is that this big red sculpture, by the artist Anish Kapoor and the engineer Cecil Balmond, will do more than glorify its generous sponsor. It is the most extravagant example yet of the idea that a big, strange object can lift tens of thousands of people out of deprivation. This idea has had some successes, but the Orbit could mark the point at which it overreaches itself and we decide to try something different in the future.

According to the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, the Olympic site "needed something extra, something to distinguish the east London skyline, something to arouse the curiosity and wonder of Londoners and visitors. With £9.3bn going into the Games, we need to do everything we can to regenerate the area and ensure that crowds are still coming here in 2013 and beyond".

The Orbit is therefore to join the ranks of the Angel of the North, the Millennium Dome and the London Eye. Also of the Eiffel Tower, the Seattle Space Needle, the Rotterdam Euromast, the Portsmouth Spinnaker Tower, the Oriental Pearl TV tower in Shanghai and the Unisphere of the 1964 New York World's Fair. Also of the Tower of Juche Idea, Pyongyang, a celebration of the late Kim Il Sung's unique fusion of Korean identity and Marxist-Leninism. The latter, at 170m, is taller than the Orbit and for some reason this is a comparison Johnson chooses not to make.

The Orbit is a landmark, an icon, a thing, a doo-dad, a wotsit. Its aim is to imprint an image on the consciousness of the world, which will also make people want to come to Stratford, east London, even after the Games have gone. It means that, as well as the new Olympic Park, the gigantic new Westfield shopping centre, and whatever might be happening in the ex-Olympic stadium, a great day out in these parts can include a ride to the top of the Orbit. By some associative magic, businesses, investors and housebuyers will want to be there more. This district, whose statistics of deprivation are often repeated, will begin to go up in the world. You might have thought that the Olympic billions were already enough to draw attention to this site, but the Orbit will be the icing on the cake...


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