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Please explain what the hell that red thing is!
My daughter & I have watched lead-up programs for the Olympics and have seen this odd looking feature several times now but cannot work out what it is and what function it has.
You people have the oddest things on your skyline. Must be like waking up on another planet when you look outside the window in the morning. hehehe
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Absolutely not a bleeding clue! It looks like a big red helter-skelter. Do you know what they are? Sorry I was watching the opening ceremony.
Oh! Go Canada!
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It's the bits left over from building the stadium, they didn't need those bits, wait, what is that creaking sound, aaahhh
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Apparently it is just a sculpture. Not sure about it myself.
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ArcelorMittal Orbit
The ArcelorMittal Orbit is a 115-metre-high (377 ft) sculpture and observation tower in the Olympic Park in Stratford, London. It is 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 allows 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, it was expected to be completed by December 2011, though like many projects on the Olympic Park that date was pushed back. 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" at least 100 metres (330 ft) high, and Orbit was the unanimous choice from proposals considered by a nine-person advisory panel.
The project was expected to cost £19.1 million, with £16 million coming from Britain's richest man, the steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, Chairman of the ArcelorMittal steel company, and the balance of £3.1 million coming from the London Development Agency. The name "ArcelorMittal Orbit" combines the name of Mittal's company, as chief sponsor, with "Orbit", the original working title for Kapoor and Balmond's design.
Both Kapoor and Balmond believe that Orbit represents a radical advance in the architectural field of combining sculpture and structural engineering, and that it combines both stability and instability in a work that visitors can engage with and experience via an incorporated spiral walkway. It has been both praised and criticised for its bold design. It has also been criticised as a vanity project, of questionable lasting use or merit as a public art project.
Well I have learnt 2 things here.
1. I have learnt what the silly thing is and
2. I have learnt who that silly man is ... " Mayor of London Boris Johnson"..... I knew he was some kind of politician, but Mayor? The guys a bit of a looney from what I have seen ... hehehe
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Well, doesn't that sound quite a bit like the Eiffel Tower when it first went up? People hated it. Now look at it. You can't have Paris without it. The Orbit may grow on everyone - although it's lack of symmetry is rather unappealing to the human eye I must admit..
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Oh let's face it; it's an unsightly mess that most mothers would associate with a bad leggo project that's been abandoned under a child's bed, lol!
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I now know something about it. Thanks Kazza. Like I said, I'm not sure about it myself.