Starchitects Queue Up To Design Welsh Gateways
A varied selection of starchitects are lining up in a competition for a series of new sculptural gateways into Wales.
The sites for these are located at the A550 on the Flintshire / Cheshire Border, Holyhead Harbour, and the Second Severn Crossing, one for car, one for ship and one for rail.
The aim of the project is to greet the millions who enter Wales every year by these main routes with large scale public art that will make their crossing the border obvious and act as landmarks for these major entry points.
In total the people developing the scheme, Landmark Wales, received 102 applications from firms in 16 countries before whittling them down to five finalists for each site.
First up is the A550, which has finalists from, Acconci Studio, Graeme Massie, Macgregor Smith - Richard Harris, Patricia Leighton & Delgeist, Tonkin Liu.
Massie has come up with a unique design called Red Linear, basically a long red line with a couple of right angles. The designer has described it as a "constructive landscape describing expansive horizontality, punctuated by verticals." The layout of the line has been done to specifically draw in earth, water and air around the site. Inside it will be a walkway that will go along the banks of the River Dee on a potential new pedestrian route to Chester.
Holyhead Harbour is one of the major harbours in Wales. Here Adams - Beleschenko, Atelier Seraji - Schein, Bradley - Plensa, Ian Ritchie Architects and Atkins, Howard Bowcott & Miller Research have all made the finals.
Ian Ritchie Architects have come up with something reminiscent of their Dublin spire proposal, a 79 metre tall sculpture decorated with a double helix groove that is planned as being symbolic of rock spiral formations on the Welsh Coast. Next to it will be a series of baby Menhirs arranged as a series of points mapping the Neolithic structures in Angelsey. Materials used with be silver, blue and pink granite.
The Severn Crossing has attracted the most prestigious names including Marks Barfield and Schwendinger - Arup - Alsop. There are also designs by Atelier Brueckner, Amber & Pearl, and Echelman - Arup - Speranza
The Marks Barfield one is one of the strangest of all the proposals. Called the Red Cloud it has hundreds of red flying figures, both men and women, mounted on carbon fibre polls that will sway in the wind and lit up at night by solar powered LED lights.
Marks and Barfield hope that their plans will represent the word Cymru which is Welsh for compatriot. Their Red Cloud will be a group of compatriots, each a sculptured individual but all swaying in motion with the wind.
Perhaps the most clichéd idea comes from Schwendinger - Arup - Alsop who have penned what is dubbed Dragon Mist Transfer. It's a huge swirling metal and light piece that will have images on it changing every ten minutes showing off iconic Welsh characters such as their legendary Red Dragon.
The main section of the structure is 55 metres tall although it continues past this. As with many of the other entries, a bridge is integrated and much is made of the environmental credentials - in this case wind turbines standing on the top.
The choosing of Monouthshire as one of the locations of these monuments is however a little ironic. It was only added to Wales in 1972 in an attempt to balance the percieved threat of the nationalists vote there and now has an ongoing campaign to join it back with England.
With 18 million pounds of lottery funding at stake, the entries will be reduced further in the coming months for what Landmark Wales hope will be a successful bid for arts funding that can make the winning projects goahead.
makeup salewhitney eve clothing
Subject: A varied selection of starchitects 
Sat Dec 04, 2010 5:43 am