LOTUS – WORLD TRADE CENTRE
FILL THE VOID

Public art always gets us tweaking at Clan B. On the one hand, we are free from the suffocating brand hand placed over our mouths. On the other, we put on the shackles of the laws of physics – gravity, mass and forces come into play. Not necessarily taming imagination. Just making it work harder. Lotus epitomised the conundrum. How to fill an expansive 30ft plus atrium?


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

  
 ?

 

 

 
 

Any bottom-fixed sculpture would only amplify the sense of void, as well as reaffirm gravity's presence. Any top hung sculpture of considerable mass could bring the tower down. We wanted to escape gravity and grow through the space in a series of structural moves. Lateral suspension was the answer. We developed an abstract impression of a lotus flower in plan. Then we turned this into a series of stainless steel frames suspended throughout the void. If you stand directly underneath the structures and look up, the Lotus petals are revealed.