As a statue outside a Newcastle shopping center states, Memory Lingers Here. Large-scale works such as The Angel of the North step into this void, representing an emotional and physical sense of pride for the region. Standing atop a green hill, which was once the site of the coal mine pit head baths, The Angel symbolizes the region literally to its core. Fabricated in the Northern steelworks of Hartlepool, the 200-ton work was assembled by regional craftsmen and mounted on a foundation made by a Northern construction firm. Even the unveiling of The Angel carried a regional point of resonance, says Bustard.
Many people say it was like seeing a ship being launched.
The same sense of ritual, a sense of celebration. The Angel is a sculpture which stands for much more than just Gateshead. In Sunderland, the future Langlands and Bell work atop the viaduct will similarly not only fill a void left by the buildings and machinery of the coal industry, but will reflect a point of pride for the area in its very construction. An area with a glass-making tradition dating back to the Saxon period, innovative uses of glass have dotted Sunderland s history, a tradition set to continue in the viaduct gateway sculpture. As a consulting engineer states in the proposal, the towering glass sculpture would be one of the most advanced glass structures in the world today literally at the cutting edge of structural glass technology.