Londoners had a surreal moment this week when visiting the city’s Covent Garden district. Those passing through the area’s central plaza were startled — gobsmacked is the term, I believe — to see a section of the historic market building apparently broken off and hovering in mid-air.
The giant optical illusion is actually the work of British artist Alex Chinneck, whose previous architectural riffs have included flipped townhouses and sliding facades.
His latest project invites close scrutiny as observers can actually walk underneath the “levitating” structure and touch the crumbling foundations. The installation, titled “Take my lightning but don’t steal my thunder,” appears to show the 40-foot-long building cracked from its stone base and floating 10 feet above ground.
It’s all high-tech trickery, of course. The structure is actually a prefabricated building made largely of lightweight polysterene, with a steel superstructure underneath. Alert observers may note the conspicuously situated green cart next to the building, which houses a four-ton counterweight.
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More than 100 engineers, fabricators, carpenters and set builders worked on the installation, which was assembled in advance and pieced together on-site in four days. Theatrical consultants added some little touches, including a lightweight coating material that gives materials the look and feel of crumbling stone.
“Art has the capacity and license to re-imagine, re-present and reinvigorate the world around us and so architecture is a brilliant canvas for creative exploration and distortion because it surrounds and contains us,” Chinneck told DesignBoom magazine. “I like how creative practice can make the everyday world feel momentarily extraordinary.”
Credit: Alex Chinneck/Jeff Moore
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