First the Eiffel Tower in Paris, then the Cloud Gate (or “Bean”) in Chicago, and now the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower in London. These three pieces of public art were all initially disliked by the city’s residents.
The Orbit Tower was only unveiled a few days ago, but reactions to the centerpiece of the London’s Olympics are mixed at best. The Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins says that one Londoner called it ‘a lump of nothing.’ International Business Times’s M. Johanson calls it ‘an Olympic-sized eyesore.’ And Kieran Long wrote a rather scathing review in ARCHITECT stating: ‘it is what you build when you don’t know what the public realm is any more.’
Watch as builders assemble the tower in this time-lapse video and then decide for yourself if it’s an engineering masterpiece or Britain’s new blemish.
