Giant steps

Abstract

Artist Anish Kapoor and engineer Cecil Balmond recently unveiled Temenos, the first Teesside Giant artwork. E&T boarded a helicopter for a closer look from above. As we pull in to the car park of Middlesbrough FC's Riverside Stadium, the E&T cameraman and I are greeted by an unprepossessing vista of abandoned industrial buildings to our left and the rusting hulk of a freight tanker to our right, with the choppy waters of the River Tees all around and a leaden, malevolent sky. In all, this seems like an especially incongruous setting for a monumental modern art sculpture, an imposing work of public art by an internationally acclaimed artist and the first of a proposed series of five such installations known as the Tees Valley Giants. Yet, turning 180 degrees away from the football ground, there it is: Temenos. At 110m long, 50m high and succinctly described by its creator sculptor Anish Kapoor, working in close partnership with engineer and structural designer Cecil Balmond as 'two rings and a pole', Temenos is impressive. Even with that container ship for a near neighbour and the city's famous Transporter Bridge as a backdrop, Temenos's ethereal steel rings and cable construction hang suspended above the ground with an aura of stark simplicity, tempered by the shape and form shifting according to one's angle.