Story highlights
Alex Chinneck has constructed an upside-down electrical energy pylon
It weighs 15 tonnes and guests can stand beneath it from September 19
Watch our unique drone video
NCS
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Take an on a regular basis electrical energy pylon, flip it upside-down, and stand it on its finish. Suddenly the on a regular basis turns into extraordinary.
Alex Chinneck, the theatrical 30-year-old British artist behind hovering architecture and melting houses, dreamed of this outstanding phantasm, however thought it would by no means occur.
“There’s always moments where I think my initial ideas aren’t possible,” says Chinneck . “But if I didn’t think that there would be no point in doing them in the first place.”
A bullet from a taking pictures star, his breathtaking new 35m-tall sculpture in Greenwich, London, opens to the general public on 19 September. It weighs 15 tonnes, includes 1,186 meters of metal, has foundations stretching 25 meters undergrounds, and is held in place by a 120 tonne concrete weight and 350 tonnes of rubble. But Chinneck makes it look easy.
A drone’s view of Alex Chinneck’s electric pylon
“This illusion of weightlessness and elegance was always a guiding concern and inspiration,” the artist says.
Chinneck’s earlier illusions embrace Take My Lighting, But Don’t Steal my Thunder – the polystyrene constructing floating above Covent Garden – and A Pound of Flesh for 50p, a Georgian home made from wax that step by step melted right into a pool.
A bullet has been commissioned to mark the launch of London Design Festival, the 9-day program of occasions and exhibitions that takes place in London every September. Immediately throughout the river from the capital’s monetary district of Canary Wharf, Chinneck says each tasks takes inspiration from its location.
“I came out here and the light out here is incredible. It’s so uninterrupted by architecture. And because it travels by the Thames, there’s some kind of reflection. It silhouettes every object in its bath, so I wanted to create something that would silhouette very beautifully.”
“The nice thing about the peninsula, with these 360 degree views, is it offers a multitude of backdrops, and every viewpoint tells a different story.”
The sculpture can already be seen from passing vehicles, buses, and Thames boat providers, and be glimpsed , says Chinneck, from airplanes touchdown at London’s City airport and the cable-cars that now ferry vacationers over the river. From 19 September guests can journey to the empty patch of post-industrial scrub land close to North Greenwich practice station and the previous Millennium Dome to get one of the best view of all: standing below the pylon – all 15 tonnes of it.