Monday, September 21, 2009

“Steel Squiggle” (Spirit of Belfast) takes shape

It’s taken a long time for the Spirit of Belfast to finally arrive in Arthur Square (better known as Cornmarket). Back in October 2007, nearly two years ago, I blogged about the Department of Social Development’s Streets Ahead public vote to select the piece of public art that would occupy the site of the old Cornmarket bandstand.

At the end of November 2007 came the announcement that Dan George’s Spirit of Belfast and its steel squiggles had beaten off competition from the wobbly pillars, a big spoon to win the £200,000 commission.

Then all went quiet. Well, the sculpture went quiet, while Arthur Square became a perpetual building site with the erection of Victoria Square and then shortly after the opening, the ripping up of the newly laid paving stones to search for buried gold (or something less interesting).

Fast forward to the beginning of May 2009, a plinth was built, wiring was installed, and then ... nothing.

Spirit of Belfast - the Steel Squiggle - half built

But at lunchtime today, the paved top was off the plinth and the four curved steel beams were being lifted and screwed into position. You can read Dan George’s ideas in fully on his website, but the gist of it can be summed up as:

Spirit of Belfast - four curved stainless steel squiggles, complete with “a ribbon of light provided by very energy-efficient light emitting diodes” whose “intensity, color [sic] and movement will be programmed as called for by events, the time of day ... or special celebrations within the city”. It intends to become “the hearth of our city centre”, drawing people to its interactivity as it weaves together steel and reminds of us of the fabric (linen) of our history.

With the evenings darkening and late night shopping soon to become the norm in Belfast city centre, it’ll be interesting to see how impressive the mood lighting will be. And in case you can’t wait, the artist’s impression of the finished work is included down below.

Spirit of Belfast - artist's impression

5 comments:

Ross Idzhar said...

Not sure how I feel about that new squiggle, will it still be functional as a band stand?

Great blog btw!

John Self said...

I voted for the wobbly pillars (trees?) so I don't like the Squiggle. I can just see the LEDs being half-on, half-broken within a year or so.

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

@Ross - there's a surprising amount of room inside. What we need is a giant umbrella to be put up over it when it rains!

@John - will be interesting if the funds stretch to the lighting. Don't see much sign of the spots being put up on the buildings around to shine down on it.

Anonymous said...

The only thing this is good for is Halloween, gonna get me a magneto costume and stand in the middle.
This is just as much an eyesore as that golf ball and tee beside the albert clock. Do people really like this modernist junk? This sort of thing is the equivalent of the concrete flower pots seen around our many shopping centres for decades. This will date very badly.

Unknown said...

As to lighting, all I saw last Thursday night was a lot of uplights, which made me pretty cross.

One of the ribbons even had a cutout around one of the uplights!

It was better as an empty plinth.