I did not know this existed. Now that I know, I can’t say if my life has been improved by the knowledge, or damaged.
I’m trying to picture billionaires climbing this thing, like greedy little hamsters in a Habitrail.
It kinda reminds me of the part in Good Omens, where it was described that the highway overpasses were designed so that each car that passed through them was a prayer to Satan. Only for this, the deity is Mammon.
There’s also a kind of horrible beauty in them claiming all rights to your experience of this monstrosity. If only there was some way to charge them by each step they take… the closer they get to the top, the more each step costs. Only the most worthy can make it to the top.
Oh no, it’s not for the plutocrats who live and work in this enclave to climb; instead, they’ll observe from their hermetically sealed towers as a constant stream of rubes re-enact the striving and endless climb to nowhere that is the dance of the American temporarily embarrassed millionaire. And they’ll laugh and laugh and laugh …
In a spin on the Facebook business model, if you’re not a museum patron, you’re part of the exhibit.
How about a plank, and someone to hold the traditional encouragement sabre? I’m sure there would be lots of folks eager to lend a hand and give the reluctant some incentive! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink…
Once people realise they’ve been had, though, there’s this observation made by Daniel Handler during the Occupy protests:
Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.
“Like” is a strong word here. I have some experience of real estate developers being forced to commission public artworks (either by planning authorities or by a vague notion that it’s required for marketing purposes), and you sometimes see a remarkable level of contempt for the actual art itself. This one is quite expensive, so the executives probably pretend to love it for commercial reasons, but the whole reason you hire Heatherwick is to ensure that you don’t have to enthusiastically justify the result to everyone (because he will do that).
I did smirk at the NYT critic referring to him as “billionaire whisperer Thomas Heatherwick”, although I think it’s slightly unfair for the architecture world to be quite so mean to him, given that he mostly doesn’t pretend to be an architect, and a lot of real architects have no business attacking anyone for being a pretentious whore.
