ABSTRACT THURSDAY - ZURICH SCULPTURES

I attended a meeting at Church this morning relating to the English course we have been running and to discuss what went well and what we could do better.  Unfortunately, only Marie, the leader of the course, and I turned up, but we had a good discussion and hope that we can help many more who come each week to the Community Fridge, and whose first language is not English.  

Mr. HCB dropped me off and I caught a bus because I wanted to go into the town centre afterwards as I hadn’t been in there for quite sometime.  As I walked towards the town centre, I noticed the new Zurich building, which was finished not too long ago and in an area now known as the plaza in Union Square.  The building looked good against the blue sky and of course, the sky was also reflected in the many windows.  

Zurich Finance is one of the town’s major employers and this new state-of-the-art office building, their new headquarters, provides over 100,000 square feet of office space over 6 floors where 950 staff can be accommodated.  Just over half will be used by Zurich, with the other areas being sub-let to other firms.  There are many environmentally friendly and sustainable features in the building including LED lighting throughout, electricity from renewable sources, onsite electric car charging points and collection of rainwater to water plants.  Eco-friendliness is a big focus for the building - a screen above the reception desk boasts of how all the power comes from renewable electricity and there are only four printers in the whole building to encourage the staff to go paperless and only print if it’s absolutely necessary!  Who wouldn’t want to work in a building like this - and just think NO filing - what a boon that will be!

However, it wasn’t just the building that caught my eye, but also the three large sculptures outside.  There was nothing near the sculptures to explain what they were, so when a man walked out of the building, I asked him if he knew anything about them and he told me that they were made from rubble from the old building, which had been on this site.  

When I got home, of course, I had to find out more, so looked online and found that these have been commissioned by Zurich and made by Charlotte Kidder, a sculptor from London.  They are formed from lozenge-shaped blocks and balls and arranged in different ways.  According to an article in the Swindon Advertiser, before the sculptures were completed, Charlotte said “I will use flint and quartz from local quarries and the colour will be inspired by the Victorian brickwork that makes up a lot of 19th century Swindon - warm terracotta, red and peach tones - with red taken from the bricks around as they add a warm earthy tone.”  Apparently, recycled TV screens were also be used adding grey, white and blue tones into the sculptures.

I will put a close up shot of one of the sculptures in as an extra - they are made to be tactile with ridges and flat surfaces, and are also made to be sat on, so I just hope that if people sit on them to eat their lunch, they will bin their litter afterwards.  However, thinking about it, I didn’t see any bins about!  No doubt when all the litter is flying around, someone will cotton on!

“We don’t need a handful of people 
     doing zero waste perfectly; 
          we need millions of people 
               doing it imperfectly.” 
Anne Marie Bonneau