TPi January 2012

business & market news

ArcelorMittal supplies £16mn of steel tubing for Olympic observation tower

Mr Mittal said he was immediately interested in the project after he remembered the excitement that surrounded the announcement that London had won the Olympic bid. He saw it as an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy for London, to showcase the “unique qualities of steel” and to play a role in the regeneration of Stratford. Mr Mittal said of his involvement in the project, “I live in London – I’ve lived here since 1997 – and I think it’s a wonderful city. This project is an incredible opportunity to build something really spectacular for London, for the Olympic Games and something that will play a lasting role in the legacy of the Games.”

Mr Mittal’s involvement in the project came about after a chance meeting with Mr Johnson in a cloakroom in Davos in January 2009, as they were on their way to separate dinner engagements; in a conversation that took “45 seconds” he pitched the idea to Mr Mittal, who immediately agreed to supply the steel. Mr Mittal later said of his involvement, “I never expected that this was going to be such a huge project. I thought it was just the supply of some steel, a thousand tonnes or so, and that would be it. But then we started working with artists and I realised that the object was not just to supply steel but to complete the whole project. It took us almost 15 months of negotiation and discussion.” Mr Johnson has said that, “In reality, ArcelorMittal has given much more than the steel.”

The ArcelorMittal Orbit is a 115m (377ft) high observation tower built using tubes in the Olympic Park in Stratford, London. The steel sculpture is Britain’s largest piece of public art, and is a permanent, lasting legacy of London’s hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympics, assisting in the post-Olympics regeneration of the Stratford area. Sited between the Olympic Stadium and the Aquatics Centre, it allows visitors to view the whole Olympic Park from two observation platforms. Orbit was designed by Anish Kapoor in collaboration with engineer Cecil Balmond. Announced on 31 March 2010, the tower was expected to be completed by December 2011 at the latest. The project came about after Mayor of London Boris Johnson and Olympics minister Tessa Jowell decided in 2008 that the Olympic Park needed “something extra”. Designers were asked for ideas for an “Olympic tower” of at least 100m (330ft), and Orbit was the unanimous choice from various proposals considered by a nine person advisory panel. The project is expected to cost £19.1mn, with £16mn of that coming from the involvement of Britain’s richest man, the steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of the ArcelorMittal steel company, with the balance of £3.1mn coming from the London Development Agency. The official name of the sculpture, ArcelorMittal Orbit, combines the name of Mr Mittal’s company, as chief sponsor, with Orbit, the original working title of Kapoor and Balmond’s design. Both Kapoor and Balmond believe Orbit represents a radical advance in the architectural field of combining sculpture and structural engineering, and believe that it combines both stability and instability in a work that visitors can engage with and experience, via an incorporated spiral walkway. The structure has been both praised and criticised for its bold design, while it has also been criticised as a vanity project, of questionable lasting use or merit as a public art project.

ArcelorMittal – Luxembourg www.arcelormittal.com

Anish Kapoor’s Orbit was officially announced as the winner on 31 March 2010. According to The Guardian , Orbit was chosen from a final short-list of three, with Orbit beating one design submitted by Antony Gormley, and another submitted by the architectural firm Caruso St John. The £16mn to be funded by ArcelorMittal consists of a £10mn cash donation and £6mn in underwriting of capital costs, which could be potentially recovered from profits generated after the games. According to Mr Johnson, the cost of the project would be recouped after the games through the private hire of a dining area at the top of the tower, predicting it would become a “corporate money- making venture”.

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January 2012 Tube Products International