London’s Olympic Icon or Coiled Turd?

The unveiling of Anish Kapoor’s London Olympic Tower has by far been in the most talked about piece of art – if you can call it that – in the architecture and design world of late. Within seconds of the seeing it, the good and the great of the industry were frantically and incessantly tweeting away about it. Nearly a 1000 viewers had already seen the twitpic image by 9 am. And let me assure you, none of them liked it.

I am a big fan of Kapoor. His work is intellectually and visually engaging. His recent exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts was fantastic. So what the hell happened here? Why has this gone horribly wrong? Boris Johnson claimed that the sculpture would be the Eiffel Tower of London. But that’s not the case at all. Where is the simplicity, the purity of structure that the Eiffel Tower has? Why is the structure so clunky? Why is it of such a massive scale? What is its purpose?

This is one of the hundreds of tweets I read about this ugly and banal piece of public art which is destined to become a eye sore for London:

Richest Man + Wankiest Sculptor = FUCKTASTROPHE.

Here are some images to prove it.