Levitating building coming to Covent Garden

From this week, Covent Garden’s magicians, levitating yodas and very still gold-painted fellows are to be joined by a new, hovering market building.

Alex Chinneck Illustration.

The structure – named Take My Lightning but Don’t Steal My Thunder - is the work of artist Alex Chinneck, and will take the form of a “hovering” market building within the main Covent Garden piazza.

‘Take my lightning but don’t steal my thunder’ - Alex Chinneck in Covent Garden

Chinneck has designed the piece to reference the scale and features of the buildings surrounding it, creating a surreal architectural interlude that apes places such as Inigo Jones’ St Paul’s Church, but while never touching the ground.

Work in progress

More than 50 people are involved in the construction of this seemingly impossible structure, including architectural consultants, structural engineers, steel fabricators, carpenters, carvers, casting specialists, set builders, scenery painters, water jet cutters, hot-wire cutters and a robot, we’re told.

Computer love

 Previous artists to have created installations at the Covent Garden piazza include Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Paul Cocksedge, Banksy, Sam Taylor-Johnson and Martha Fiennes.

Brace yourselves

Alex Chinneck’s Take my Lightning but Don’t Steal my Thunder will be on display daily on the East Piazza of Covent Garden, London WC2E 8HD from 2­ - 24 October 2014.

(Tue, 30 Sep 2014 | By Emily Gosling, Design Week)