为迎接2012年伦敦奥运会，英国将斥资1910万英镑建造一座115米高的深红色塔形建筑，这座塔比纽约的自由女神像还要高出22米，将成为伦敦的新地标。这座高塔是由特纳奖得主阿•卡普尔设计的，塔的主体将为钢结构，建筑造型蜿蜒曲折，从远处看像是一个损毁了的过山车。

Britian's biggest piece of public art: At 115 metres high, the steel tower will be taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York.

More than 120 years after Gustave Eiffel built the steel lattice（格架，晶格） that came to symbolize¹ Paris, London is taking on the City of Light with the Colossus（巨人，巨像） of Stratford — at least, that is one of the names the capital’s mayor has in mind.

The Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell sees Anish Kapoor’s work as a way of making the site of the 2012 Games stand out（突出，引人注目） . East London will have the largest and most ambitious（有雄心的，热望的） artwork in the country: a startling（令人吃惊的） red tower that looks like a mangled²（被损坏的） rollercoaster（过山车） .

It is too early to tell what the world will call this £19.1 million, 115m-tall (377ft) feat³ of technological⁴ and industrial wizardry（巫术，魔法） , but another of the mayor Boris Johnson’s favorite titles is The Hubble-Bubble.

Kapoor beat competition from the artist Antony Gormley and the architects Caruso St John to win the mayor’s contest to find yet another “iconic（图标的，形象 的） symbol” for the city and the Olympic Park. Detailed⁵ plans were revealed yesterday at the Greater London Assembly headquarters.

Officially the structure, which will be 22m taller than the Statue of Liberty and more than twice the height of Nelson’s Column, is called the ArcelorMittal Orbit. It is named after the steel company owned by Lakshmi Mittal, the richest man in Britain, who is paying most of the cost — and planting a giant advert⁶ in the Olympic site. However Mr Johnson immediately bombarded（炮击，轰炸） his new landmark⁷ with a fusillade（猛射，齐射） of alternative names.

“Some may choose to think of it as the Colossus of Stratford,” he said. “Some eyes may detect a helter-skelter or a supersized mutant（突变的） trombone. Some may even see the world’s biggest ever representation of ashisha pipe and call it The Hubble-Bubble. But I know that it is the ArcelorMittal Orbit. It represents the dynamism（活力，动态） of a city coming out of recession and the embodiment（体现，化身） of the cross-fertilization of cultures and styles that makes London the world capital of arts, the cultural and creative industries.”

Whatever it ends up being called, the Orbit is the latest and priciest example of a vogue⁸（流行，时髦） for gargantuan⁹（庞大的，巨大的） public art commissions, begun by Gormley’s Angel of the North in 1998 and continuing now with Mark Wallinger’s planned 50m tall horse near the Eurostar terminal at Ebbsfleet in Kent. Mr Johnson said that £3.1 million of the cost would be borne by the Greater London Authority, with Mr Mittal picking up the rest. “I know very well that there will be people who say we are nuts, we are barmy（酵母的，发泡沫的） in the depths of a recession to be building Britain’s biggest ever piece of public art,” he said.

However, although the Olympics area already had the stadium, the aquatics¹⁰（水上运动） centre and a giant shopping mall, he and Ms Jowell had long felt that “we needed to give that site something extra, something to distinguish the East London skyline, something to arouse the curiosity and wonder of Londoners and visitors alike”. They needed money to make it possible, and steel, so Mr Johnson was overjoyed to find himself sharing a cloakroom（衣帽间，盥洗室） with Mr Mittal at Davos in January 2009.

The meeting lasted 45 seconds. Mr Mittal said that Mr Johnson spoke¹¹ for all of them but by the end of it they had a deal. The Mayor rebutted¹²（辩） suggestions that the structure would be an improper¹³ incursion（入侵，侵犯） of corporate¹⁴ branding into public life, pointing out that Olympics rules meant it could not carry the company name during the Games.

Mr Kapoor said he wanted to take on the Eiffel Tower and the memory of the “bird’s nest stadium” from the last Olympics by trying to “rethink” the idea of a tower. Lifts and a walkway will enable 800 people an hour to get to the top, where there will be a restaurant and viewing platform.