What a hideous thing that new sculpture is. I just read that it not alligned correct. How the hell can you tell? Its just another monstrocity like the one in Mardol which the tax payers have to yet again foot the bill. Who on earth sanctions these things? Whoever they are their heads should roll!

It was our Tory-controlled council. However, the actual work was contracted out to Abergavenny-based firm Alun Griffiths, the same people that did the resurfacing of Dogpole last year, which as I'm sure you know already needs re-doing.

Personally think it's like the 'sculpture' (if you can call it that) in the town centre. Shrewsbury councillors are not very good in sculpture choice :D Fancy giving it to the Welsh! (joke) Mother nature may have her say here in bathing it in sewage!

Was it not our labour council who behind closed doors gave a multi million pound contract to a local compay for the the new Council building,then built flood defences costing hundreds of thousands to protect it?makes no odds who is in control,we pay!

A plague on all their houses, I say. Personally, I voted for the Albion Party candidate at the town council election in May.

As far as I'm aware no councillors had any say in this "sculpture" and it was Judith Williams and Graham Gallier whose builders yard is also the "arts foundation" headquarters.

Well,I would've thought that they would've had some say...wouldn't they of had to "pass" something?... :unsure:
Anyway,not to worry about "who's scratching whos' back"..as X factor/Big Brother/Town cup run(oops!) will keep the masses occupied! ;)

Come the revolution eh!?!
(well..as long as it doesn't clash with anything good on the tele! :rolleyes: )

The planning committee - which is made up of councillors - gave this thing planning permission last year.

It was paid for from some sort of Darwin fund. Shrewsbury wanted to get some of the action and tourism gain from the whole Darwin thing.
Whether we have I have no idea, the birthday cake event in February was most certainly a joke.

The choice of concrete using aggragates from the many geological varieties in Shropshire is I think great. The design is less good, someone from SABC must have had some input I imagine!
The place and context of a piece of public art is crucial to it's success and I feel that this site was not well chosen.

As pointed out by PS, local councillors are in the main responsible for the last 20 years of grot in this part of the town. The shopping centres with their blank fake facades, the Guildhall warehouse pastiche which made us a laughing stock with other councils and now the Theatre Severn, a hugely expensive cultural embarrassment.
The original old roofscapes and the Nexus development are the only positive aspects I can think of along Smithfield road.
The shortly to be built hotel and the development on the Mardol corner are not an inspiration. They look like the sort of stuff going up all over the country. If it is in a historic area we stick on some more stone cladding attitude.

We've got a consultation and talk at the Theatre in October but at £35 a ticket who can afford to go?
I believe there will be a speaker from CABE. If you want to know who our Design Champion is on our council you will struggle to find out. It is not a portfolio that is given the slightest importance in Shrewbury, supposed town of heritage and architecture.
Now Prince Charles has been shown the door by SPAB perhaps we can move forward with better modern design and more respect for our older heritage as a result.

There should never have been compromise with the design ie; filling in the spines at the base of the sculpture. Like with the Theatre Severn, good design is not a Blue Peter sticky back plastic make do and mend process you have to get it right at the start.

The finished product seems to look like a giant toast rack. They could put a cage round it and fill it with monkeys!

The list of things I want demolishing in Shrewsbury (all post war buildings/structures of course) is growing and growing... how much more of this rubbish can we take before the whole town is ruined by it... I fear we're not far off. The new theatre, the Guildhall, the Frankwell suspension bridge, the new thing at Mardol Quay Gardens, the Riverside/Raven Meadows area in general... grrrrrr

It's a shame because there's some good stuff being built (albeit not a lot) too, including for instance the extension to the Morris HQ on Bridge Street, as well as the Nexus development. Other historic towns seem to be doing better these days (though many have had far worse 1960s modernist/brutalist town planning done to them) and I was pleased to see in Bath, for instance, the new shopping district being of very high quality.

As for what's yet to come in Shrewsbury: the new hotel on Smithfield Road, the redevelopment of the Riverside shopping mall... it fills me with dread.

Why can't our councillors not demand a higher standard of work?

What's this about? Have you got more info/a website?

£35 sounds, well, obscene though.

www.shropshire.gov.uk/arts

Thu 8 October
A QUANTUM LEAP
Venue: The Walker Theatre
A QUANTUM LEAP . . .how public art and culture adds value to regeneration

I would really like to go to this but like a lot of Shrewsbury residents £35 x 2 is not affordable.

I believe the problems with the sculpture are going to be solvable, thank goodness as this could be further embarrassment for the town. It may turn out better than it seems at present when the landscaping around it is done and it will be reflected in the river.

As CABE wrote a very scathing report on Theatre Severn at the design stage what they will think of the end result I dread to think.
Seeing the Gay Meadow site lying empty which would have been a less expensive and all round 100% better site for our theatre I think a certain councillor has a lot to answer for! <_<

The Darwin Centre in London looks absolutely amazing I would really like to visit it.


http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/darwin-centr...tors/index.html

Yeah the Gay Meadow would have been a much better site for the theatre. The theatre would actually only have filled about 2/3rds of the site - the remainder could have been given over to the Wakemen School, as they need more room! Car parking would be provided at Abbey Foregate, which is about the same distance as the Frankwell car parks are to the theatre on Frankwell. Also the Council would probably have got Network Fail to open up the pedestrian link to the station there, something which the private developers of the Gay Meadow aren't too bothered about.

But we are talking about the Council here. Who aren't exactly brilliant in the area of public buildings and even road construction (*cough* Harley Bank) :rolleyes:

Talking of the Gay Meadow: the developers say that they can't afford to build at the moment and that they bought the land at peak-of-boom prices.

Shrewsbury Town FC 1 - 0 Greedy (and Stupid) Developers

Gay Meadow belonged to us. It was like the 1980s when Mrs Thatcher sold all our assets from right under our noses in order to fund her reign in power. :angry:

The councillors decided that we would make more money selling off the Gay Meadow. The crafty lawyers were then set to work to destroy the covenant but in reality the money made on selling the land to developers and getting rid of the covenant was all wasted, mainly sunk into the ground for complicated foundations and also probably Willmott Dixons coffers. We lost our decent architect for the massively expensive project all because we built the theatre in such an expensive and inappropriate location. :(

I'm pretty sure Shrewsbury Town FC, and not any public body, owned the Gay Meadow land.

My main beef with the new sculpture is it doesn't bear much of a resemblence to the original drawings which made it look like a freshly empied pack of Pringles.

What we actually have is more 'skeletal' than 'snack food'.

Seems a lot of money to pay but we should be bold in these things.

Cheers

B&A

I think that two sisters left the land to the council with a covenant in place that made sure that the land was only ever used for recreational purposes.

The council sold the land to the club with the covenant still in place.

The council decided to ignore the wishes of the sisters and transferred the covenant to a field in Oteley Road.

s.g.d.

Thankyou s.g.d. you are quite right and so I understand it was sold with covenant (which are very expensive and normally extremely difficult to remove) for the princely sum of £ 1-00 ! <_<

This of course is purely a gesture to confirm the legality of the transaction. :blink:

Key lesson here: don't gift land to a local authority!! If you want to gift land to the public (or for the greater good or whatever) then set up a trust and make sure the trust cannot be controlled by the local authority or councillors. Covenants are clearly not worth the trouble writing down either.

Wasn't it a Labour council, then?

£450,000....£483,090 !!! :angry: :blink: :angry:

Well, it's there for all to see now

http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/webcams.nsf/o...02575A50046740E

Is it worth the estimated £450,000?

Will it bring visitors flocking to Shrewsbury to see it?

A good piece of modern art?

Someone has already been uploading photos of it to Flickr.

Why doesn't it look anything like the original design?

I hear that someone has already climbed up it.

s.g.d.

I will go down Mardol now to investigate.

OK, there's metal barriers all down that side of Smithfield Road again, so no chance of any climbing happening tonight.

No shortage of townies loudly making their presence known though. In a quick 10 minute walk I spotted someone smashing pint glasses at the Shrewsbury Hotel, a spectacular scrap holding up the traffic on Bridge Street, and someone throwing up in Hills Lane, as well as a full compliment of foul-mouthed boyos swaying all over the pavement up Claremont Bank and packs of mutton-dressed-as-mutton females shrieking into the night. What a dump this place is sometimes.

A shame the few spoil it for the rest...

Its one of the reasons why I'm very selective when going into town in an evening.

Sadly around the end or beginning of the month is when wages are paid, those types who you have so rightly mentioned binge drink their money away.

Now it is more revealed I think it acheives a fluidity that belies the heavy material it is made from but I am annoyed that the two ends have been infilled to prevent it being climbed. This spoils the lightness the sculpture aimed to have and provides an inviting surface that will be graffittied in no time.

The concrete is made from 10 of the 12 aggregates to be found in Shropshire of which portland stone is not one so it was always going to be a greyish colour.
A lot of people have misconceptions of concrete as a building material. We have concrete bridges,churches and houses in Shropshire that are Grade 11 listed.

It is a much better attempt at public art than the dreadful Darwin Gate though I worry that the landscaping around it and the apparently inevitable security measures deemed necessary by the new council will degrade the original concept even further.

A lot more thought should have been given to this public art regarding it's position, size, impact and potential cost. We could have surely had an Anthony Gormley or Andy Goldsworthy for half a million squid!

I don't actually mean that really, I love Shrewsbury, but Friday night scruffiness is annoying everywhere.

I wonder if we could have got a Superlambanana instead? According to their website 'We're evolving'.

I'd go along with lemon squeezer's comments above. It's much better than the effort at the top of Mardol but there again that cost a fraction of the projected £450,000 for this piece.

It doesn't look like the original artist's impression for which the council gave the go-ahead. Perhaps it would have been better sited on the outskirts of town, say at Emstrey Island, but maybe it was thought it would complement the new theatre being opposite.

It's probably a good piece of modern sculpture but not at that price tag.

The so called "sculpture" on the Mardol (my namesake infact!) was supposed to cost £30,000 and the cost not only doubled but there was no money left in the pot for seating or landscaping, hence the ghastly lumps of sandstone plonked around it for us to sit or not as seems to be more often the case! :lol:

I love the superlambanana, TW but I also love our colourful sheep at Harlescott.
I'm not so keen on the Craven Arms playskool woolley jumpers however on their sculpture at the Auction Yard.

Having just had roast lamb for dinner I am wondering if we are eating too much of them?

I weigh up the costs with having been reminded that our failed judicial review to prevent the unitary council and associated costs came to the same amount.
Our new councillors own 100% and even 150% for some of the rural councillors pay rise for this year would also have covered the £450,000 cost. <_<

I have to admit I now quite like the sheep at Harlescott Crossroads too! :D

Looking at cam pictures today I notice the 'quantum leap' is bathed in Severn water at its feet. Now does this mean that this structure is now contaminated? Mother nature casts her vote on this ugly whale bone! ;)

It will make an excellent river level gauge - with the webcam looking down at it you can keep an eye on the river level from the comfort of your own home.. ;)

Rivers up again! Looking at the quantum leap webcam, oh -boy, wondering as the construction seems to be raw concrete with a bed of tarmac, why are the 'builders' taking so long to complete a path?

It has been closed for a long time. I'm still not convinced by the new cycle path that will go between the boxing club and the river.

Talking about the river, there was a spectacular amount of debris by the weir in Castlefields yesterday - unfortunately by this afternoon, the water on Sydney Avenue was getting deeper and deeper and most of the debris visible yesterday was back under water. A rather nice rustic wood garden bench was floating past at around 5.30! Might go back and take some photos when the water has gone down a bit.

It's such a lovely scuplture. Well, no... Not really.

A picture in the Chronicle showed what the 'Slinky'would have looked like if it had been mounted over Darwins statue outside the library,and to be honest i thought it looked good.

Thinking about it, it has no context. There's no reason for it being where it is. It is interesting shape. But is that enough? I don't think it is.

If they could not afford to do it properly, why'd they bother?