B of the Bang
Manchester, UK
Image: Len Grant
Part of the regeneration strategy for Manchester's eastern quarter, Heatherwick Studio won the competition to design a monument to the 2002 Commonwealth Games. The design reacts against the convention for passive-looking monuments to sporting events that celebrate peace and harmony, rather than the dynamism and explosiveness of physical competition.
The 56-metre weathering steel structure is made of 180 identical tapering tubes arranged in twenty-four elliptical groupings of between one and nine spikes. As tall as a twenty-storey building and weighing 180 tonnes, B of the Bang is the same height as the Leaning Tower of Pisa - only leaning ten times as much.