15-Ton Sculpture Balances Upside Down in London

British sculptor Alex Chinneck is a master of illusion, an artist with an affinity for turning things upside down. His portfolio includes an inverted house, car, and now, an electricity pylon. His latest public installation, A Bullet from a Shooting Star, turns a 15-ton pylon on its head, as though it's been launched from space to land tip first into the desolate grounds of London's Greenwich Peninsula. The piece was created for the London Design Festival, and according to the artist, represents his biggest challenge to date and an intensely collaborative effort. The numbers alone are impressive: 450 pieces of steel, with 900 engineered connection points, all constructed from a combined length of 3,891 feet of steel. Highly specialized fabricators and engineers helped realize the artist's vision, which called for a top-heavy sculpture balancing at a difficult angle. The massive 50-foot sculpture can be seen from across the peninsula and from all planes that fly to and from City Airport.

At night, the sculpture is illuminated, like monument to urbanism. During the day, the pylon's intricate geometry casts a vast network of shadows on the grounds beneath. “Greenwich is the centre of world time, and I’m interested in the idea that the sculpture intersects the prime meridian line, acting as a giant sundial,” says the artist on the festival website. The piece employs the visual language of Greenwich Peninsula's rich industrial history, which counts oil mills, shipbuilding, and major gasworks and steelworks. In a sense, it is one last homage to this industrial past before the peninsula enters a new era: the project was a collaboration with Hong Kong property developers Knight Dragon, and installed on the site of a massive residential project the company is planning. The sculpture should remain in place until construction begins on those 15,000 new condos.

An accompanying limited edition print of an exploded diagram of the sculpture is on sale on the artist’s website. See more London Design Festival 2015 projects here and more of Alex Chinneck's work here.

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