Wenlock and Mandeville, the one-eyed graphic gremlins that officially symbolize the London Olympics, now have a playground suitable for their fiendish antics, with the opening of the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the love child of a chance encounter in a cloak room at Davos (I'm not kidding) between Boris Johnson, the once and future mayor of London, and Lakshmi Mittal, uber titan CEO of steelmaker ArcelorMittal. Johnson wanted Mittal to foot the bill for a structure to add "artistic panache" to the Olympic Park; Mittal wanted naming rights. Indian-born sculptor Anish Kapoor and Sri Lankan architect Cecil Balmond were hired for the job.
By Kapoor's own admission, he wanted the feel of the structure to be "a little dangerous, a bit oppressive and slightly threatening."
Now Mittal has generously donated the Orbit to the redevelopment company in charge of turning the post-game Olympic Park into a mixed-use area that will include affordable housing. This redevelopment is one of the arguments political leaders used to sell the British public on hosting the Games, the cost of which has now escalated to the equivalent of $17 billion.
Of course, knowing that something "a little dangerous, a bit oppressive and slightly threatening" sits as the centerpiece of affordable housing--well, that should make everyone feel better, no? Here's the link to the NYTimes Orbit-all:
http://tinyurl.com/6qts3oq
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