The London Design Festival is delighted to announce that the Endless Stair, a visually and architecturally astonishing installation and one of the highlights of this September’s London Design Festival, will now be taking up residence on the lawn in front of the world-renowned Tate Modern from Sept. 13 to Oct. 10, 2013.
Says professor Alex de Rijke, director of dRMM, the architects leading the design for the structure, “Endless Stair is a temporary sculpture designed to be endlessly reconfigured. After initially considering a site at St Paul’s Cathedral, the London Design Festival team have decided the best location for the Stair’s debut is outside Tate Modern, Bankside. The programme of modern art and architecture, combined with the Thames panorama of London, provides a context to which dRMM’s Escher-inspired installation can make a distinctive contribution.”
Adds Ben Evans, the director of the festival, “As one of Britain’s most prestigious cultural institutions and London’s most popular tourist attractions, Tate Modern is a magnificent setting for the Endless Stair. We are thrilled to bring the project to a site that will allow such a diverse audience to interact with this ambitious contemporary design structure.”
The Festival is grateful to Tate Modern for providing a stunning location for Endless Stair on the building’s north landscape.
Says Chris Dercon, director at Tate Modern, “Tate is delighted to support the London Design Festival with a location for Endless Stair and we look forward to the installation becoming a major attraction of the Festival this September.”
The Endless Stair is the second hardwood structure that AHEC (American Hardwood Export Council) has commissioned for the London Design Festival in collaboration with Arup. While providing a unique public experience to celebrate imaginative design in London, these collaborations have an important technical design legacy and challenge current thinking within the construction industry.