The London Olympics

[Chie]

Well I'm sorry, but I think it's very communistic, and sadly this style of 'art' is becoming increasingly pervasive in the UK. There's the Angel Of The North near Newcastle, which is at least symmetrical, and the Aspire Tower in Nottingham, and probably a few more examples that I haven't heard about.

Anyway, for £19 million they could have designed something like the Space Needle:



Or the Gateway Arch (which you can go up):



Or the Unisphere:



Or even the world's most spectacular fountain.

Not this shitty, rusty, twisted, wonky, rotting exoskeleton arrangement:



That I believe will be an embarrassment to the nation.

As green themes are very important at the moment, I think a giant steel 'tree of life' with millions of shiny leaves and various viewing platforms would have looked amazing. Oh well.

[Gavin Scott]

I think what sets it apart from the other structures you mention is that this has the illusion of being unbalanced. They had this thing in the 1950s (I think they called it "floating architecture"), using cantilevered slabs of concrete and such. This seems to go further, as the illustration does make it look like it should all fall down.

I'm a bit "meh" about the whole thing, but if its privately funded then so what?

It will never be considered an "embarrassment" I would say - but folk will either like it or not.

Whether they have that many visitors milling around it as shown above is another thing I'm not sure about.

[Chie]

I wouldn't mind so much if the sculpture was plain steel. It's that putrid decaying meat shade of reddish brown that makes it look so grotesque.

[Gavin Scott]

I wouldn't mind so much if the sculpture was plain steel. It's that putrid decaying meat shade of reddish brown that makes it look so grotesque.

It sort of is the colour of steel, in as much as it has to be primed or it will rust.

But I do like your descriptive turn of phrase.