Folly - Gazing Ball

Commissioned by the National Trust as a result of a national competition for the Folly2018! sculpture trail at the UNESCO World Heritage Fountains Abbey Studley Royal Water Gardens, Orta's winning design, 'Gazing Ball', reinterprets the notion of the folly architecture and its role in 18th century landscape design.

The project developed from site visits and historical research on the former landscape design by Sir John Aislabie (1670-1742). The resulting architectural sculpture breaks with the original neo-classical hexagonal architecture of the rotunda, creating a sculpture that evokes the notion of 'oppositional tension', a feature of Aislabie's landscaping. Orta has imagined a pentagonal steel structure with a trompe l'oeil colonnade; the classic dome has been replaced by a rotating-axis tower onto which a huge gazing ball delicatley balances. The mirror surface of the sphere is designed to reflect and distort the surrounding water gardens, whilst the geometrical shaped windows act as framing devices from which visitors are offered multiple perspectives over the composed landscapes.

This work evolved out of Orta's research project Totipotent Architecture, funded by the Welcome Trust Sciart program which explored, in collaboration with cell biologists, the relationship between the cellular and the architectural body, by simulating the process of cell differentiation to develop new architectural forms, and imbuing them with new 'social' functionalities.

The research process involved drawing and experiments with scale modelling in steel mesh and glass blowing, to create a series of maquettes for future public sculpture.

• http://www.studio-orta.com/en/artwork/68...
• https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/fountai...
• https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/fountai...