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 by a nine person advisory panel.
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 Arcelor Mittal 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.
History
According to Boris Johnson, around October 2008, he and Tessa Jowell decided 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”.
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 media were reporting unconfirmed details of the project in October 2009, describing steel magnate and Britain’s richest man, Lakshmi Mittal’s interest in funding a project which would cost around £15m, with Johnson believed to want something like the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty. At that time, there were understood to be five short-listed artists, including Angel of the North designer Antony Gormley, being considered for the project. Early designs reportedly included ‘Transmission’ by Paul Fryer, a 400 feet (120 m) high structure, “resembling a cross between a pylon and a native American totem pole”, according to The Times. A spokesman for Johnson would only confirm he was “keen to see stunning, ambitious, world-class art in the Olympic Park”, and that work on the commissioning project was at an early stage.
Mittal’s involvement in the project came about after a chance meeting with Johnson in a cloakroom in Davos in January 2009, as they were on their way to separate dinner engagements; in a conversation that took “45 seconds” he pitched the idea to Mittal, who immediately agreed to supply the steel. Mittal later said of his involvement, “I never expected that this was going to be such a huge project. I thought it was just the supply of some steel, a thousand tonnes or so, and that would be it. But then we started working with artists and I realised that the object was not just to supply steel but to complete the whole project. It took us almost 15 months of negotiation and discussion”. Johnson has said that, “In reality, ArcelorMittal has given much more than the steel.”
Kapoor’s Orbit was officially announced as the winner on 31 March 2010. According to The Guardian, Orbit was chosen from a final short-list of three, with Orbit beating one design submitted by Antony Gormley, and another submitted by the architectural firm Caruso St John. According to The Times, Gormley’s design was a 390 feet (120 m) steel colossus titled Olympian Man, a trademark piece of a statue of himself, rejected mainly on the grounds of its £40m cost.
Johnson and Jowell agreed to issue a commission for Orbit in partnership with Mittal, after it was chosen by a 9 person advisory panelbrought together by them to advise on a long list of proposals. According to Mittal, the panel made a unanimous decision to pick Orbit, as it both represented the games, and was achievable within the ambitious time frame, Kapoor described it as “the commission of a lifetime”.
Johnson pre-empted possible criticism of the project during the official launch, by stating: “Of course some people will say we are nuts – in the depths of a recession – to be building Britain’s biggest ever piece of public art. But both Tessa Jowell and I are certain that this is the right thing for the Stratford site, in Games time and beyond.”
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