CONESciousness 6: Conical Creations from Cologne to Christ Church
Welcome to Day 6 of CONESciousness here on DDOA! Today we visit several cities in the world that host some of the most curious conical sculptures ever created.
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‘The Chalice’
Cathedral Square
Christchurch, New Zealand
by New Zealand Sculptor Neil Dawson
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“Chalice celebrates the new millennium and the 150th Anniversary of the founding of Christchurch and Canterbury by the Canterbury Association. Sculptor Neil Dawson was commissioned to produce a major contemporary, public artwork for Christchurch by The Turning Point 2000 Trust.
18 metres high, 2 metres in diameter at ground level and 8.5 metres in diameter at the top, its shape mirrors the spire of Christchurch Cathedral.
With a solid steel base up to approximately three metres above the ground and a perforated network of 42 aluminium shapes represent the leaves of native trees that previously grew in the city area. The leaves depicted are mapou, kowhai, mahoe, totara, karamu, titoki, ngaio, maratata and koromiko.
The leaf patterns – complex constructions made up of computer routed shapes – reflect the geometric features of the Cathedral architecture, windows and tiles. As the leaves become larger, higher up the sculpture, they become more detailed and less dense. The open texture of the artwork allows views into and through it…” Read more
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“Dropped Cone”
2001
Sculptors: Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen
Neumarkt, Cologne, Germany
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A Little Background on ‘Dropped Cone’ from the Artists themselves:
“Our commission for Cologne did not come from the city itself but from the owners of a new shopping mall on the corner of the busy Neumarkt Square — the kind of commercial site that is unusual for us but which we found appropriate here, given the city’s ancient history as a crossroads of trade. At liberty to choose the exact location for the work, we looked for an outdoor site and, because the streets of Cologne are so congested, decided to place our sculpture on the roof of the mall. So placed, it could also become part of the architecture around it…” Read more
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‘LOTUS’
by Seoul-based artist Jaehyo Lee
On View May to October 2013
South Eastern Triangle, Union Square Park
NEW YORK
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Presented by NYC Parks & Recreation and Cynthia-Reeves Projects, in cooperation with the Union Square Partnership.
Here’s what art critic Jonathan Goodman wrote about Jaehyo Lee’s work:
“Allowing the materials to speak to him, [Lee] builds self-contained worlds that mysteriously communicate with their outer surroundings…Texture is deeply important to Lee, who emphasizes the façade of the wood, crosscut and planed to reveal the character of the grain. The surface thus reveals the character of its making, becoming indicative of the creative process and holding interest by itself.” (Sculpture Magazine, The Possibilities of Nature, May, 2009)Read more on nycgovparks
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‘SPRING’
Sculpture by Coosje van Bruggen
Cheong Gye Cheon Restoration Project
2006
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A Little Background on ‘SPRING’ from Oldenburg & van Bruggen:
Spring, 2006, became the first large-scale project entirely conceived, designed and directed by Coosje van Bruggen. The sculpture is her response to a commission by the Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture for an emblematic work to mark the Cheong Gye Cheon Restoration Project, an initiative to remove a wide street covering a river in the center of Seoul and the conversion of four miles of the river’s banks into a park, which received the “Cities On Water” award in Venice, Italy in 2004. READ MORE
Here are a couple of interesting reads on ‘Cone in Design and Architecture’..
1.’88 Cones’, NY Installation, 2008
-Reappropriating a common street artifact -the traffic cone- into a critique of automobile congestion in our cities
Read more about “88 CONES”
2. Occult Secrets Behind Pine Cone Art & Architecture
The pine cone symbol is one of the most mysterious emblems found in ancient and modern art and architecture. Few scholars realize it, but the pine cone alludes to the highest degree of spiritual illumination possible…Read more
DAILY DOSE OF ART 
Love these, Pau!