For those who don't know who Thomas Heatherwick is, he is (in my humble opinion) probably the most exciting designer working in the world right now. I may have mentioned him before? Let me see if I can find a link... Ah, here we go.
Certain tribes in the less accessible areas of Greenwich village worship him as a god, and his name is whispered in the hallowed halls of... oh, never mind. As a great, er, mammal once said, He. Is. Fully. AWESOME.
From his studio website: The Seed Cathedral is a 20-metre high building, constructed from 60,000 transparent 7.5-metre long optical strands, each of which has embedded within its tip a seed. The interior is silent and illuminated only by the daylight that has filtered past each seed through each optical hair; a quiet space in which to contemplate this formidable collection of the world’s botanical resources.
All those spines... they're glass! GLASS. (well, okay, probably not glass, probably some sort of transparent plastic, but still) Holy crap! (giggles manically). I am sooooooo going to see this. Oh yes. This is worth a trip to China all on its own.
Here he is being interviewed by the Chinese for the Expo website.
I must admit, though - while I still worship the ground the guy works on (see what I did there?), he is showing a bit of a preference for spiky/furry stuff. This is fine... so far. But don't let it become a cliche, Thomas!
2 comments:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/shanghai-2010-expo/7676620/Shanghai-Expo-British-pavilion-disappoints-visitors.html
The thing *looks* amazing... but that seems to be it's Achilles heel.
Sorry, the CGI above makes it look like a giant sphincter. I don't think I'd wait 5 hours to get in it either.
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