This surreal architectural sculpture, entitled Take My Lightning But Don’t Steal My Thunder, is a mind-blowing piece in which a section of a building appears to be levitating in mid-air. Created by British artist and designer Alex Chinneck, the large-scale optical illusion sits directly in Covent Garden in London and was modeled after the original architecture of the184-year old Market Building.
Chinneck’s expertise with large-scale works was the appeal in commissioning the artist to create a work that would stand out in the huge public space. He and his team first devised a plan to make the 40-foot long installation as light as possible. They used machines to carve the entire structure from polystyrene and covered the surface with materials that look like stone. Over four days, the team installed a metal frame and put the sculpture together like a puzzle until the visually exciting illusion came to life on a massive scale.
“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,” explained Chinneck. “I like how creative practice can make the everyday world feel momentarily extraordinary and by theatrically manipulating familiar architectural scenarios this is what I try and hope to do.” The piece will be on view in the Covent Garden piazza through October 24, 2014.
Learn a bit more about the project in the video below.
Alex Chinneck’s website
Covent Garden website
via [Designboom]