It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a roller coaster? No, it’s the “ArcelorMittal Orbit” observation tower in London, focal point of this year’s Olympic park. CNN has posted a photo gallery and story, if you want all the details. Now Europe’s tallest sculpture, the tower is 22m taller than the Statue of Liberty and cost £24 million. For folks who don’t speak metric, that’s 72 feet and $36.5 million and change, I think.
Sorry, London. It does nothing for me. It’s just a giant undisciplined mess. But hey, hope your games are great anyway.
- Touch the sky: Anish Kapoor unveils UK’s tallest sculpture (rt.com)
- Orbit Tower unveiled at London’s Olympic Park (cnn.com)
- Orbit tower at London Olympics site completed (cbsnews.com)
- Eiffel, eyesore? London’s tower for Games done (espn.go.com)
- London 2012 Olympics: officials unveil the ‘Orbit’ tower (vancouversun.com)
I want to go climb it!
LOL! I should have seen that coming.
Ayup. 😀 Getting to know me pretty good, you are. (Okay, I sounded like Yoda, I did)
What a mess 😀 Let us hope my countrymen have the rest of the whole Olympic Thing – especially transport infrastructure- a little better put together than this was. Oh, hold on- IS this the transport infrastructure?
I gather you aren’t exactly thrilled with the tower either. If it does represent your transport infrastructure, you have my condolences. You could be in for an interesting summer … 😆
At first glance, I thought it was wrapped in a roller coaster like I’ve seen in images of Las Vegas. Barring that, I’d bet the London area has much taller places, with much more impressive views. The illuminated night shot at the end of the slide show wasn’t bad though… 😀
I’ve no doubt there are better, taller places in London. The tower’s only advantage is being right there in Olympic park.
BTW PT, I noticed the “notify of comments” check box is gone form your blog. Since WP started forcing them to be checked in advance, I’m having to remember to uncheck it when I respond to a comment to avoid duplicate email notices. How’s that working on your end? 😕
I canceled the box so nobody would get spammed from this blog. It doesn’t affect me in any way, and I hope it’s not inconveniencing any readers who want to follow the comments here. So far no one has mentioned it. Certainly I’d put it back if anyone complained. You want me to put it back?
I’ve seen some blogs where the administrator has added an “uncheck” reminder just before the comment box, which I really appreciate. (Maybe I’ll do that.) I never remember to uncheck, just as I never remembered to check.
The “uncheck” reminder is definitely the way to go PT, as I didn’t get a notice for either of your replies. Good thing I checked my stats page before this one was off the bottom of the screen! 😯
I just added the reminder. Wouldn’t want you to miss out on any of the scintillating conversation here. 😉 And thanks for your input on the subject. No one else has said anything one way or the other.
No problem, this one came through just fine. It’s funny how others just go with WP’s weird changes without even a blink! 🙄
WordPress is still messing with stuff. (I took mine off the bottom also.) Sometimes you have to opt out of checking the box and sometimes opt you have to opt in. Maybe it will stabilize soon
See WordPress installs option for comment follow-ups news about that setting. Or do you mean it’s still messed up since yesterday’s announcement?
The sculpture pix don’t present the darn thing very well. Hopefully it looks better in person and in its’ surroundings (it does look like it’s trying to mirror lines and forms) – It’s either very bad or OK..
Nice concept to have a spiral people could walk around and get different views? – but should have been taller.
Also hope all this stuff brings some business to that area so the locals get monetary benefit for putting up with all the trouble and costs.
I sure agree the locals should benefit. Whether they will or not is anyone’s guess. I’m not sure the possible monetary gain would be worth all the hassle and disruption. I even saw one story somewhere that said the British government is asking some locals for permission to mount missile launchers (or some such weapon) on their roofs to defend the games against possible attacks.
awful, with all my respect I was expecting something better. Sorry very much but this tower seems to me like an Eiffel Tower colapsed!!
Apt description, with all that structural steel exposed and going every which way.