(I've had to create another account to reply as I'm doing my best to leave HN permanently. Part of this involves forgetting passwords as quickly as possible.)

You admit that you have "no idea" what I'm talking about when I complain that this is an artist's fantasy that can only be realized by recourse to massive engineering resources. So it would have been nice if, instead of dismissing what I was saying, you acknowledged the possibility that I have a legitimate position on this, e.g. by asking for clarification.

If you research Thomas Heatherwick, the Garden Bridge, and Dustin Yellin, you will find that Heatherwick is widely derided as a pied piper figure or a "billionaire whisperer". His special talent lies in convincing the wealthy that his expensive and impractical design ideas are worth implementing. The Vessel at Hudson Yard is a recent example of a lame but mega-expensive Heatherwick project.

The real point I'm trying to make here is that almost any project can be realized if enough money is thrown at it. Being an artist is not necessarily about having dreams and then raising tens of millions of dollars to make them into reality. Economy of means is an important part of all creative activity, and Heatherwick in particular doesn't get it. It's the old story of any fool being able to do something for a dollar, but only an engineer being able to do it for fifty cents. This applies to artists just as much, and it applies to the bang-for-the-buck they get when making work.

Heatherwick is a good example of a designer who presides over bloated, unclever vanity projects. Arup cheerfully accept millions of pounds to actually bring his ideas somewhere near becoming reality. To take a built example: Arup engineered the museum Heatherwick designed in South Africa which includes a large atrium carved out of a preexisting set of concrete grain silos. You can read here
https://www.arup.com/-/media/arup/files/publications/t/arup-... about the very extensive trickery necessary to make this happen.

This Yellin proposal has all the hallmarks of that same process—an impractical and unnecessary megalomaniacal creative gesture that only becomes possible with a lot of engineering ingenuity and capital. The hard work is done by the engineers, and of course they are delighted to be paid to be involved in something so prestigious. They don't realize or just don't care that it's bullshit by any measure of artistic value. That is the frustrating smugness and foolishness that I am complaining about. This kind of project is a blue-chip "boutique engineering" gravy train for Arup and similar organizations, and the projects have zero positive impact on the world while at the same time rubbing everyone's noses in the mediocre concepts of overrated designers like Heatherwick and Yellin. It is grotesque, it has everything to do with vanity, greed and wealth and nothing to do with stimulating important conversations or improving quality of life.

You can find out all about Yellin online, and make up your own mind whether he's a real artist with an important and thought-provoking message, or just a hyperactive self-promoter. (He's well connected in certain circles but not taken seriously as an artist by the art world any more than Banksy is.)