From the man who made the 'Gateshead Flasher', a 'Millennium Man' for the Dome | The Independent From the man who made the 'Gateshead Flasher', a 'Millennium Man' for the Dome Monday 4 October 1999 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online THE ANGEL of the North is getting a brother in the south. Anthony Gormley, the sculptor who made the 20m high Angel that stands outside Gateshead, yesterday unveiled an even more ambitious project to be built next to the Millennium Dome in south east London. THE ANGEL of the North is getting a brother in the south. Anthony Gormley, the sculptor who made the 20m high Angel that stands outside Gateshead, yesterday unveiled an even more ambitious project to be built next to the Millennium Dome in south east London. Quantum Cloud, which has already been nicknamed "Millennium Man", is a 29m high sculpture of a figure standing inside a cloud. Both cloud and figure are made from 3,500 steel needles, each 1.6m long, which blend into each other.

It will stand on a 12m high pier just off the Greenwich peninsula, making it over twice the height of the Angel of the North. It is one of seven pieces of sculpture commissioned by the New Millennium Experience Commission (NMEC), the organiser of the Dome, to stand outside the exhibition and welcome visitors. In all the NMEC is spending £1.5m on the seven works of art. Mr Gormley, who won the 1994 Turner Prize, said yesterday that he hoped Londoners would take the mammoth sculpture to their hearts the way his Angel of the North had been adopted by people in the North-east. "I don't mind if it gets given a nickname. The public are much better at giving names to things and they've started calling the Angel 'the Gateshead Flasher' because of his outstretched arms," Mr Gormley said. "The Angel was evidently a figure. He has volume and was put in opposition to space. With the Quantum Cloud the body is exploded, it no longer has a fixed volume and all these elements are in flux. "The idea is that it should be elusive and ineffable," he added.

"I want two old ladies to be sitting looking at it and saying 'Can you see it Edna? Can you see the man inside it?' and her saying 'No I can only see thousands of shiny needles'. "Human beings are a zone of energy and light that react with space and light around them. Quantum Cloud is a constructed monument to the future, about the possibility of seeing human beings as part of the wider chain of being. It is also a natural metaphor of the behaviour of flocks and herds and shoals." Mr Gormley has employed computer software similar to that used to map mathematical equations in chaos theory to construct the cloud and figure. It means the 3,500 steel tubes which make up the sculpture have had their final position decided by a computer-generated image. The civil engineers, Ove Arup, turned down the opportunity to build the sculpture because it does not obey any of the normal rules of structural engineering. The final commission for the project was only made two months ago because the NMEC was concerned the sculpture might be impossible to build.

The other works in the project include a spinning drum, containing coloured water which creates a solid-looking mirror created by Turner Prize winner Anish Kapoor, and a sliced cross-section of a ship by Richard Wilson. The slice of ship will lie in the River Thames beside the Dome. Tacita Dean is creating a sound sculpture using the existing Blackwall Tunnel air vent which sits on the site. The circular vent will split into time zones and play recordings from ports around the world. Another work, by Bill Culbert, is comprised of four, 30ft long light lines which are projected into the sky and move like a hand writing in space. The sculptors, Tony Cragg and Rose Finn-Kelcey, have also created works for the Dome's grounds. A famous London square is to be shored up to prevent it collapsing on to the underground under the weight of Millennium Eve revellers, it was announced yesterday. The £1 million operation is being carried out at Parliament Square, close to Big Ben in central London. A thick concrete "raft" is being laid under the square, which lies above two underground lines.

"We have known for some time that at certain points along its route, the beams supporting the roof over the two lines may not be able to bear very heavy loads," London Underground managing director, Derek Smith, said. "For normal day-to-day use, this is not in any way dangerous. However, the potential for large numbers of people congregating on Parliament Square means that we need to take sensible precautions." Antony Gormley drops 60-tonne load for monumental sculpture | Art and design | The Guardian Antony Gormley drops 60-tonne load for monumental sculpture Exposure, built in the Netherlands, took Scottish pylon-makers and Dutch engineers six years to complete Dutch residents have nicknamed Gormley's new work as 'the shitting man'. Photographer: Allard Bovenberg Charlotte Higgins Chief arts writer Friday 27 August 2010 13.05 EDT Share on Messenger Close At 26 metres (85ft) tall, it has a good distance on the Angel of the North.

And just as its English cousin has been dubbed the Gateshead Flasher by irreverent locals, so has this vast sculpture, poised on a spit of reclaimed land in the central Netherlands , already been christened de poepende man – "the shitting man". On politer days the Dutch call it de hurkende man (crouching man). Officially, however, Antony Gormley's latest monumental sculpture is known as Exposure, and will be formally unveiled in the Netherlands on 17 September. The sculpture – whose components were fabricated by a pylon manufacturer in East Lothian and then shipped to the Netherlands for assembly – is the fruit of nearly six years' labour and a catalogue of setbacks, last-minute losses of funding and enormous technical and practical difficulties. "This sculpture has many heroes; and I am not one of them," says Gormley in his London studio, where he is hobbling around on crutches, his left foot in plaster. It is an object of mind-bending scale and complexity. It weighs 60 tonnes, contains 5,400 bolts and consists of 2,000 components.

If this crouching man stood up, he would be over 100 metres tall; if an adult stands next to it, he or she may just be able to peek over its feet. Each metal element is of a different length and was hand-cut; the non-orthogonal angles at which they meet are a mathematician's dream – or nightmare. The site dictated the form of the sculpture. The spit of land (or rather polder, an area of land enclosed by dykes) looks out over an endless landscape of brackish inland sea and the big, lowland sky. Seeing the site from a distance – from the outskirts of the town of Lelystad nearby – it is hard to read the scale and depth of the view. "It is a sublime situation," says Gormley. "I wanted an object that couldn't be read immediately," he says of Exposure. "The opposite, if you like, of the Angel of the North, which immediately confronts you. Exposure invites you to investigate, to walk to it." As one approaches it, he explains: "The nature of the object changes. You can see it as a human form in the distance. It becomes more abstract the closer you get to it.

And finally it becomes a chaotic frame through which you can look at the sky." And the pylon association? "I like pylons. They are brilliant structures. They have an economy of means that is absolutely beautiful," says the sculptor. "They are about connectivity; they are the energy lines of the territory." The first step in the making of the sculpture was for Gormley to cast himself in plaster – an "extremely uncomfortable" hour and a half locked in a crouching position. The next was to translate the solid form into a geometrical system. Using software developed by Professor Roberto Cipolla of Cambridge University, the form was digitised. Sean Hanna, of University College London, devised algorithms to help place the elements such that they both described the form of the body and had structural integrity. The idea is that each piece of metal is necessary – take one away, and it would no longer be structurally sound. The elements meet at particular nodal points – starbursts of metal – the most congested of which are at the head, throat, heart, stomach and genitals of the form. These roughly correspond to the "chakras", or energy points, of ancient Hindu thought.

"It is a re-examination of the body as an energy system, rather than as a system of bone, muscle and skin," says Gormley. The sculptor also worked with the Dutch engineering company Royal Haskoning to develop a form that could be built by the Scottish pylon manufacturer Had-Fab, which was asked to undertake the mammoth task after a search for suitable fabricators extending "from Canada to Turkey and Ukraine to Finland". Because of funding problems, Had-Fab ended up subsidising the piece to the tune of £120,000. The team of makers hand-cut each piece of metal using paper templates. Over the summer, a trial building of this giant Meccano-like piece (or at least of its vast feet) was undertaken in East Lothian, before it was shipped to the Netherlands to be built. Had-Fab's managing director, Simon Harrison, "got his teeth into it and would not let it go," says Gormley. "It has been a nitty-gritty piece of British pragmatism, and I am so chuffed with it I can't tell you. This is what people have managed to achieve through sheer bloodymindedness.

The Scots sweated blood over it and now they've had to give it up to the flatlanders." He adds: "If the Angel of the North is an angel that's like a ship, this is a man that's like a pylon. For me it is the transparency of the form that is the breakthrough. Rather than a massive, solid object like the Angel of the North, it is much more tentative. It is less about confrontation, and more about reverie." And the fact that this giant pylon man looks as if he may, not to put too fine a point on it, be taking a crap? "I don't mind that at all," says Gormley. "Having a crap is one of the most relaxing and intimate moments one has in the world." Bolton unveils sculpture of 900 sports stars, but it doesn't like the cold | The Independent Bolton unveils sculpture of 900 sports stars, but it doesn't like the cold Friday 2 December 2005 00:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online The extraordinary appeal of Antony Gormley's Angel of the North at Gateshead on Tyneside has led many towns and cities to go one bigger.

Neighbouring Newcastle responded first in the game of municipal of one-upmanship with a crane-like structure called Tyne Anew. Chesterfield threw up a massive sundial beside the M1 known locally as "the tin wigwam" and Manchester spent heavily on Thomas Heatherwick's £1.4m B of the Bang. Bolton, Lancashire, knew that investing in such public art carried health warnings. Neighbouring Manchester had to cordon off Heatherwick's spiky 184ft creation at the City of Manchester stadium when a 6ft spike was found to be hanging by a thread, 70ft up. But the town ploughed on regardless and, after a mild embarrassment of its own, was yesterday admiring a mighty statue that carries pictures of an eclectic mix of 900 local sporting heroes, including former footballer Nat Lofthouse, boxer Amir Khan and current Bolton Wanderers boss Sam Allardyce. It nearly didn't happen. Barely a day before the statue was to be unveiled, it emerged that the resin which was supposed to bond its panels together didn't take well to cold weather - and, needless to say, this has not been the warmest of weeks in Bolton.

A regiment of Calor Gas heaters was rolled out and they seem to have done the trick. The 86ft, £300,000 Spirit of Sport statue, situated next to Wanderers' Reebok Stadium, was still standing last night. The statue provoked controversy long before the wraps came off. There was the usual concern about distraction to motorists (the statue sits beside the M61) but locals were also concerned that all 900 panels were to be filled immediately, leaving no room for the faces of tomorrow's sporting heroes. Nine hundred heroes for a modest town of 260,000 people also seemed like a tall order. But Bolton managed it by including those no one will otherwise celebrate. They include a four-year-old tae kwon do star Alexis MacDowall, nominated by her instructor Michael Parchment, (who happens to be a world champion and also takes his place on the sculpture). Baseball player Paul Mortimer, hockey coach Sue Russell and many more are up there with Sir Nat - arguably the town's most famous sporting son by virtue of his 30 goals in 33 games for England.

No one in Bolton is allowed to forget the fact that the structure will tower 21ft higher than Gateshead's 65ft Angel. Low Fell and Birtley History Low Fell, Birtley and the Angel ANGEL OF THE NORTH Overlooking the A1, on the southern edge of Low Fell, the Angel of the North stands on the site of the colliery baths of the Team Colliery (or Ravensworth Ann Pit), a mine that operated from the 1720s to the 1960s and which claimed at least 80 lives during its operational years. Angel of the North. Photos : David Simpson In 1989 this industrial site was reclaimed and the following year, partly inspired by the success of the sculptures at the Gateshead Garden Festival, it was decided that the site should become the home to a major landmark sculpture. Sculptor Antony Gormley was selected in 1994 to create what would become the region's most iconic landmark with ï¿½800,000 of funding secured for the project.

Manufactured of steel at Hartlepool, the Angel was transported to the site in three sections on low loaders in a journey that took five hours. Once assembled, the Angel was unveiled on February 16, 1998. The central, 65 feet high, ribbed human figure of the sculpture weighs 100 tonnes and is modelled on Gormley's body. The two outreaching wings resemble those of an aeroplane and weigh 50 tonnes each with a span of 175ft, almost the same as a jumbo jet. They tilt inwards by 3.5 degrees offering a welcoming embrace to those visiting the region. It is estimated that this impressive rust-coloured Angel is seen by 33 million people every day. That's roughly equivalent to one person every second. Today this awe-inspiring, beautiful work has become a symbol not just of Gateshead, Tyneside and the region as a whole but is recognisably one of the icons of Britain. Part of the romance of the structure is of course in its setting on the edge of Gateshead Fell overlooking the A1 with the green valley of the River Team to its west.

LOW FELL In 1800 Gateshead Fell was a wild uninhabited heath studded with "miserable huts" and cottages occupied by muggers, cloggers and tinkers. It was part of Gateshead's common land, belonging to the freemen of Gateshead and Gateshead's Lord of the Manor, the Bishop of Durham. It was exposed land on which preacher John Wesley found himself lost in a snowstorm in February 1745, "many a rough journey have I had before, but one like this I never had" he later recalled. In 1809 an act of parliament was obtained for dividing the fell with permission for developing roads, drains, wells and quarries. Development began in earnest in the 1820s when many poor dwellings were demolished and a church was built dedicated to St. John. Consecrated in 1825 it was built on Sour Milk Hill, now part of Sheriff Hill. Living on the Fell soon became a matter of improved status. Low Fell developed on the western part of the fell overlooking the pretty valley of the River Team with views of Ravensworth Castle .

In the 1850s Low Fell was "a large village" through which a new turnpike road (Durham Road of 1826) passed through, studded with numerous pleasant villas overlooking the Team. To the east near Windy Nook is the suburb of High Fell, also once part of Gateshead Fell. The poet Thomas Wilson (1773-1858): born in Low Fell whose works include 'The Pitman's Pay' and 'Weshin' Day'. From a poor mining family, Wilson progressed to become partner in the Tyneside alkali manufacturer Losh, Wilson and Bell. Another talented son of Low Fell was the singer and songwriter Alex Glasgow (1935-2001). Glasgow composed the songs and music for the popular play 'Close the Coal House Door'. He also wrote scripts for the TV drama 'When the Boat Comes In' to which he sung the famous 'Dance ti thye Daddy' theme tune.

THE FIRST PRIVATE HOUSE LIT BY Electricity The Underhill Residential Home in Kells Lane, Low Fell has a place in world history as one of the former homes of the Sunderland-born electric light bulb inventor Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) who lived here from 1869 to 1883. In Swan's day this picturesque building was his private house, simply called Underhill but its significance is recalled on a plaque on the outside wall. It recalls Swan's residence and notes that Underhill was the first private house in the world to be wired for electric lighting and was thus the first to have electric light bulbs installed. Swan, who was also a major pioneer of practical photographic processes invented and demonstrated the first light bulb known as the incandescent electric lamp in Newcastle. This occurred prior to its development by the American inventor Thomas Edison who usually takes the credit today because he was quicker at acquiring a patent. Swan's first wife died in 1862 and he moved to Gateshead in 1869 where he lived with his second wife (previously his sister in law). Here, the children of his second family were born.

After Swan's departure, Underhill served as Beaconsfield School. It is now an old people's home. WREKENTON AND EIGHTON At the beginning of the nineteenth century Wrekenton was open land. It was the site of a small house called Red Robins, a pub called the Seven Stars and a row of cottages called St Helena Row. Around 1820 a village was established by Mr Warburton, who named it Wrekenton at the suggestion of the historian, the Reverend John Hodgson. The name was chosen because the new village was divided from neighbouring Eighton Banks by a Roman road called Wrekendyke on the southern boundary of Gateshead Fell parish. Today, the Wrekendyke follows the B1288 and A194 'Leam Lane', towards White Mare Pool roundabout. Wrekenyke means dyke of the fugitives and was reputedly inhabited by Romany gypsies before the Victorian village was built. Early spellings of Eighton, a place nearby suggest it means high settlement which is an apt description.

In the nineteenth century, sandstone quarries around Eighton were the source of the misnamed Newcastle Grindstones that were famed throughout the world. Nearby Springwell, technically in Washington, is named from being the source of the River Don that eventually enters the Tyne at Jarrow . A colliery opened at Springwell in the 1820s and was operated by the Liddells and later the Bowes family. Harlow Green east of Eighton has a name that comes from the Anglo-Saxon Hare-Law meaning grey hill. BIRTLEY Birtley at the southern extremity of Gateshead Borough lies to the south of Low Fell and the Angel of the North. It is rather hemmed in sort of place being separated from Eighton and Harlow Green on the edge of Gateshead by the A69. On its eastern side it is even more cut off from Washington , in the City of Sunderland by the A1(M) even though it is only metres away. On its west side it is separated from the open countryside of the Team Valley around Ouston and Kibblesworth by the east coast main railway line.

It's best connection is with then neighbouring town of Chester-le-Street in County Durham to which it is continuously linked by housing. The name Birtley means 'the bright clearing' and it belonged to the Neville family from the 1300s to 1569 but had previously belonged to the De Birtleys who took their name from the village. Coal mining took place here from as early as the 1300s and by the 1700s Birtley was mostly inhabited by miners. It was still a village in the nineteenth century but grew to absorb Barley Mow, Portobello and Vigo to the south. Portobello commemorates the British naval victory at Porto Bello near Panama. Vigo commemorates a naval victory of 1702 over the Spanish and French near the Spanish city of that name. Barley Mow was named from a local pub. An iron works existed at Birtley from the 1820s on the west side of the Durham Road and was operated by the Perkins family of Birtley Hall.

One member of this family, Colonel Perkins (1821-1871) is commemorated in a prominent statue in Birtley Village Square. The Perkins name is also remembered in the former mining village of Perkinsville near Chester-le-Street, which was built by the family in 1856 to supply coal for the Birtley iron works. Today the Birtley iron works site is occupied by the Komatsu factory. BIRTLEY's BELGIAN VILLAGE Birtley has an extraordinary link with the nation of Belgium as for a short time it was home to an entire village of Belgian nationals. In February 1916, during the First World War, an agreement was made between the British government and the Belgian government in exile whereby Belgians would manage the armaments factories at Birtley and provide labour. A town called Elisabethville, named from the Belgian Queen was built just north of Birtley and occupied by around 6,000 French and Flemish speaking Belgian refugees along with injured Belgian soldiers.

Fenced off from the rest of Birtley with strict restrictions on access, there were around 40 streets in the town with names like Rue De Namur and Rue De Bruges and a main street called Boulevard Reine Elisabeth. The houses were huts but Elisabethville had its own school, police force, nunnery, a church, several shops, a hairdressers and licensed premises. There were three choirs in the town, a brass band, a debating society and the Belgians even had their own newspaper. After Christmas 1918 the war was over and all except around 30 Belgians (who married locals) returned home to Belgium. New streets with English names were built on the site of the town and local people moved in. Today the hut-houses of Elisabethville have long since gone but Birtley's Elisabeth Avenue marks the site of what was once Boulevard Reine Elisabeth. Brian Salter Blogs Did Black Adder really go to Hogwarts? The last time I went to Alnwick was way back in ancient history.

So when my son and his GF suggest we go out for the day all the way up to Northumberland to visit this historic town, I find myself jumping at the idea. Why ever not FGS? It’s a pretty hefty drive from Ilkley in Yorkshire, where I am staying, but luckily Drystan is doing the driving while I sit back in style in the back of his Megane, chauffeured up the A1 past the Angel of the North – which is only visible from afar nowadays since this iconic sculpture is mostly surrounded by trees that are many times larger than when it was first unveiled many years back. The Angel, near Gateshead, was designed by Antony Gormley – a 20 metres tall, 200 tonne steel sculpture with wings measuring 54 metres across. Work began on the project in 1994 and cost £1 million. It was finished on 16 February 1998 and has aroused controversy ever since. According to Wikipedia, the sculpture is known locally as the 'Gateshead Flasher'. Alnwick is one of those towns that was built within a city wall with various portals dotted around, such as this one at Bondgate.

The first thing that most visitors to the town come across is one of the most iconic book shops in the whole of England. Barter Books is a second-hand bookshop which attracts over 200,000 visitors a year and is one of the largest second-hand bookstores in Europe. You find it in the Victorian railway station, which was opened in 1887 and was in use until the closure of the Alnwick branch line in 1968 by the infamous Dr Beeching. Barter Books was opened in 1991. Their name is a good indication of their modus operandi – customers can bring in old books and exchange them for credit against future purchases, though, of course, standard cash purchases are also available. Actually it’s a lovely, fascinating building inside, even if it doesn’t immediately strike the eye from the outside. The railway station was designed by William Bell in 1887 and at 32,000 sq. ft, was designed to make an impression, since Alnwick is the seat of the Dukes of Northumberland and in the 19th century they wanted to impress visiting royalty.

There’s a model railway running over your head as you wander along the assorted book shelves which have been separated into subject areas. There are three large murals, a café located in the old station buffet and numerous restored station features. Book turnover, the owners proudly boast, is around 3,000 per week. Around the main room you find over forty glass cases containing some of the more interesting antiquarian books, such as this Babar book … and that’s one of the real pleasures for me – I’m afraid I have enough grey hairs to actually remember when these books were commonplace. There’s even a couple of first edition Narnia books locked up for safe keeping that I also have sitting on my book shelf back in Ilkley. One of the best murals is of famous English language authors, painted by a local artist, Peter Dodd. At 38' x 16' it depicts some forty life-size writers from 1800 onwards, such as Austen, Hemingway, Keats, Stoppard and Orwell. Apparently it took two years to create, and it draws the requisite number of oohs and ahhhs from most visitors passing through the shop.

But we haven’t come to Alnwick just to visit the bookshop, beguiling though it undoubtedly is. No, what most people come for are the gardens and castle. Now, I was last here over a decade ago and in those days there were grand plans to resurrect the old derelict gardens which had been lying unloved for so long. But today that dream has come true, thanks to the tenacity of the present Duchess of Northumberland. The gardens had a long history under the Dukes of Northumberland, but fell into disrepair. The first garden was laid down in 1750 by the first Duke, who employed Capability Brown to landscape the parkland adjoining his castle. The third Duke was a plant collector who brought seeds from all over the world, and he even raised pineapples in hothouses. In the middle of the 19th century, the fourth Duke created an Italianate garden featuring a large conservatory, and by the start of the next century, the gardens featured yew topiary, avenues of limes and large swathes of flowers. But during World War II’s ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign, it was all turned over for food production.

It was closed as a working garden in 1950 and with the ensuing austerity of that decade, the garden rapidly fell into disrepair. Half a century was to pass before the present Duchess – Jane Percy – started the Garden’s resurrection in 1997. She brought in Belgian designers Jacques and Peter Wirtz to ensure that each individual garden within the overall concept was cutting edge in terms of both design and technology used. As you enter, the first thing you are struck by is the Grand Cascade which is the epicentre of the Garden. It reminds me of a mini-Chatsworth, which must surely be where some of the inspiration for it originated. Running north to south it forms a dramatic centrepiece, immediately catching the eye and drawing one in. It’s probably true to say that this is the most ambitious new garden created in the United Kingdom since the Second World War, with a reported total development cost of £42 million. Its first phase of development, which opened in October 2001, involved the creation of the cascade and initial planting of the gardens; and it was in this condition that I first saw it.

The Cascade is gravity fed – just like in Chatsworth – and every so often as the sustaining tanks fill up, a display of fountains comes into play, soaking the kids who play chicken or Russian roulette running between the on-and-off water shoots. As we pass through the Venetian gates at the top of the Grand Cascade we reach the Ornamental Garden which really is a joy to the eye. At its centre is a little pool that runs into the rills that run throughout the Garden. Beds of roses and delphiniums are edged in box, while cut flower species grow with annuals and bulbs alongside small fruit varieties. The deep blue of the delphiniums is beautifully set off by the sharp starkness of the thistles… … but for me the best of all are the huge swathes of roses in all varieties and colours. These pictures just can’t do them justice. and they are simply crying out for the coming of smellavision to the internet, whenever that will be… One of the disappointments for me is the maze, which admittedly is beautifully crafted from bamboo – now so thick you simply cannot see through the walls adjoining the pathways. I make two turns and already find myself in the centre.

Has it been designed for three year olds? Or am I just super-intelligent, I ask myself. (Answers on a postcard…etc etc!) There are a couple of dovecots in the Ornamental Garden which look at first as if they are standing there all forlorn and alone; but closer inspection reveals some white birds who are waking up and eventually strut their way out onto the ledges. Emerging from this area, though, you soon come across covered walkways. I remember when they were just iron skeletons. But now they have taken on a life all of their own. Water is a central feature of the gardens and there is a variety of fountains and water features, such as this inside-out fountain… I’m sure there must be a special name for this kind of fountain which is really a dribble rather than a fountain. But somehow I don’t think ‘dribbler’ would be an appropriate name! Here’s another dribbler which the daring can try to walk through without getting soaked… And this gravity fed fountain only erupts every 15 minutes or so, with the kids running in and out of it daring the gods to get them wet before they are finally trapped inside.

A nearby board explains that a pool on high ground overlooking the Serpent Garden overflows to fill up the sculpture through underground pipework. The water rises in the transparent tubes until it is level with the surface of the nearby pool and then a pneumatically powered valve below ground opens to release the hydrostatically charged water into a circular manifold that feeds ninety jets. When the jets have all but died, the valve closes allowing the system to fill up again and the cycle to continue. This vortex sculpture is meant to represent vortices in nature, such as tornadoes and black holes, wherein the water creates a vortex as the forces of water pressure, air pressure and gravity make it move into a downward spiral. There are other things to see as well, such as a poison garden, opened in 2005, containing plants such as cannabis and opium poppy as well as some more dangerous substances. The year before, one of the largest treehouses in the world was opened containing cafés and restaurants. It covers a whopping 6,000 sq ft – that’s 560 sq m to you and me!

There’s also a peach tree garden which bursts into life twice a year with blossom and ground tulips; but today it is pretty underwhelming and we walk straight through it. Below is a little lake which again is somewhat underwhelming, save for a Chinese-style duck house! Another favourite place is the pavilion and visitor centre, opened in May 2006 with its barrel-vaulted gridshell roof. It can hold up to 1,000 people and features cream teas – oh yummy – once you have called their bluff over their advertised gluten free offerings. But the gluten-loaded scones are worth gluttonising over … Mind you, the café makes up for this by being incredibly helpful when it comes to advising you that butter actually contains milk. No! SculptSite.com: Antony Gormley Sculpture Charlotte Higgins Chief arts writer Antony Gormley drops 60-tonne load for monumental sculpture Exposure, built in the Netherlands, took Scottish pylon-makers and Dutch engineers six years to complete At 26 metres (85ft) tall, it has a good distance on the Angel of the North.

And just as its English cousin has been dubbed the Gateshead Flasher by irreverent locals, so has this vast sculpture, poised on a spit of reclaimed land in the central Netherlands, already been christened de poepende man - "the shitting man". On politer days the Dutch call it de hurkende man (crouching man). Officially, however, Antony Gormley's latest monumental sculpture is known as Exposure, and will be formally unveiled in the Netherlands on 17 September. The sculpture - whose components were fabricated by a pylon manufacturer in East Lothian and then shipped to the Netherlands for assembly - is the fruit of nearly six years' labour and a catalogue of setbacks, last-minute losses of funding and enormous technical and practical difficulties. "This sculpture has many heroes; and I am not one of them," says Gormley in his London studio, where he is hobbling around on crutches, his left foot in plaster. It is an object of mind-bending scale and complexity. It weighs 60 tonnes, contains 5,400 bolts and consists of 2,000 components.

If this crouching man stood up, he would be over 100 metres tall; if an adult stands next to it, he or she may just be able to peek over its feet. Each metal element is of a different length and was hand-cut; the non-orthogonal angles at which they meet are a mathematician's dream - or nightmare. The site dictated the form of the sculpture. The spit of land (or rather polder, an area of land enclosed by dykes) looks out over an endless landscape of brackish inland sea and the big, lowland sky. Seeing the site from a distance - from the outskirts of the town of Lelystad nearby - it is hard to read the scale and depth of the view. "It is a sublime situation," says Gormley. "I wanted an object that couldn't be read immediately," he says of Exposure. "The opposite, if you like, of the Angel of the North, which immediately confronts you. Exposure invites you to investigate, to walk to it." As one approaches it, he explains: "The nature of the object changes. You can see it as a human form in the distance. It becomes more abstract the closer you get to it.

And finally it becomes a chaotic frame through which you can look at the sky." And the pylon association? "I like pylons. They are brilliant structures. They have an economy of means that is absolutely beautiful," says the sculptor. "They are about connectivity; they are the energy lines of the territory." The first step in the making of the sculpture was for Gormley to cast himself in plaster - an "extremely uncomfortable" hour and a half locked in a crouching position. The next was to translate the solid form into a geometrical system. Using software developed by Professor Roberto Cipolla of Cambridge University, the form was digitised. Sean Hanna, of University College London, devised algorithms to help place the elements such that they both described the form of the body and had structural integrity. The idea is that each piece of metal is necessary - take one away, and it would no longer be structurally sound. The elements meet at particular nodal points - starbursts of metal - the most congested of which are at the head, throat, heart, stomach and genitals of the form. These roughly correspond to the "chakras", or energy points, of ancient Hindu thought.

"It is a re-examination of the body as an energy system, rather than as a system of bone, muscle and skin," says Gormley. The sculptor also worked with the Dutch engineering company Royal Haskoning to develop a form that could be built by the Scottish pylon manufacturer Had-Fab, which was asked to undertake the mammoth task after a search for suitable fabricators extending "from Canada to Turkey and Ukraine to Finland". Because of funding problems, Had-Fab ended up subsidising the piece to the tune of £120,000. The team of makers hand-cut each piece of metal using paper templates. Over the summer, a trial building of this giant Meccano-like piece (or at least of its vast feet) was undertaken in East Lothian, before it was shipped to the Netherlands to be built. Had-Fab's managing director, Simon Harrison, "got his teeth into it and would not let it go," says Gormley. "It has been a nitty-gritty piece of British pragmatism, and I am so chuffed with it I can't tell you. This is what people have managed to achieve through sheer bloodymindedness.

The Scots sweated blood over it and now they've had to give it up to the flatlanders." He adds: "If the Angel of the North is an angel that's like a ship, this is a man that's like a pylon. For me it is the transparency of the form that is the breakthrough. Rather than a massive, solid object like the Angel of the North, it is much more tentative. It is less about confrontation, and more about reverie." And the fact that this giant pylon man looks as if he may, not to put too fine a point on it, be taking a crap? "I don't mind that at all," says Gormley. "Having a crap is one of the most relaxing and intimate moments one has in the world." From plaster to crapper ... so to speak! I rather like this sculpture (structure). I find interesting all the time, tribulations, money, sweat, skill, thought and whatever else it took to get this mammoth sculpture complete. I am sure there is more to this than meets the eye or is told in this article - as Paul Harvey used to say, "now the rest of the story".

In the end it is another excellent sculpture creation by Antony Gormley, and I for one thank him for that. "Exposure" by Antony Gormley 1000+ images about GCSE F Art/ Tx - 1 Landmarks on Pinterest | Aqa, Land art and Trafalgar square Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas GCSE F Art/ Tx - 1 Landmarks 71 Pins230 Followers landmarks are prominent natural or constructed features that have inspired artists such as Cezanne and Monet who responded to particular landmarks, making series of studies over time. Land artists, Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson have created earthworks that have been landmarks. Anthony Gormley sculpture 'Angel of the North' and the installations on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square have been contemporary landmarks.

Question: Which scupture, when unveiled in 1994, was nicknamed 'The Gateshead Flasher' by locals?
Answer: THE ANGEL OF THE NORTH