A landmark sculpture for Kent
It seems that everywhere in England wants its own landmark and tourist attraction. London has The London Eye, Gateshead has The Angel of the North and Kent now appear to want a huge horse that will be able to be seen from land, rail or air.
I can see the attraction to the London Eye as it has a purpose, you can see amazing views all over London and it is quite a special experience. It is now the most popular paid tourist attraction in the UK attracting more than 3 million people every year. However, where sculptures like The Angel of the North are concerned I need a little more convincing. I think that it is a fantastic piece of architecture and it looks so simple yet it needed 150 metric tonnes of concrete as its foundations, quite unbelievable. It also created a huge topic of interest at the time and much publicity for Gateshead but I wouldn’t class it as a tourist attraction so I’m not sure what benefit it brings to the area. Some would now class it as the landmark for the North of England and apparently it is one of the 12 official icons of England.
Kent, Ebbsfleet to be precise, are now looking for their own £2m hilltop landmark. The 5 shortlisted ideas include an abstract steel latticework of stacked polyhedrons, an enormous white horse 33 times’ life-size, a ’signal’ tower consisting of a laser beam of light, a giant pairing of a concrete disc and detached wing, a kitsch temple with an altar at the centre and a craggy mountain made out of recycled excess material excavated from the site. Each actually looks very eye catching and would certainly bring a focal point to an area that is not known. The Telegraph has more details on the sculptures and artists.
At the moment Ebbsfleet is mainly just a train station and there is a football team called Ebbsfleet United, but there are plans to develop this area with new homes, offices and shops and that is where this sculpture comes into play. The aim of the sculpture is to bring an identity to the area, somewhere where people will want to live. The question is who would like to have views from their kitchen window looking at the back end of a horse or a craggy looking moutain made out of recycled excess material? We’ll have to wait and see.
Add comment May 8th, 2008
