A giant sculpture made from 350 trees stands outside Buckingham Palace

0
114
Hafsa Khalil, CNN

In June, when the UK celebrates Queen Elizabeth II’s 70th birthday on the throne, a striking tree-shaped sculpture will stand outside Buckingham Palace, at the heart of the festivities.

Designed by Heatherwick Studio, the 69-foot “Tree Tree” will be made up of 350 native British trees attached to a giant steel frame. This reflects The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) initiative, which invited the British to plant a tree for the anniversary in October 2021 and March 2022. Over a million trees have been planted in those months, according to the QGC website.

British designer Thomas Heatherwick, the founder of Heatherwick Studio, said in a press release that Tree Tree is being brought together from workshops and nurseries across the country in an incredible community campaign that is changing the landscape of the country.

Heatherwick is behind many high-profile design projects, from London’s new Routemaster buses to the 2012 Olympic cauldron. The latest sculpture revisits the woody theme of some of the studio’s previous works.

  • Last year in Shanghai, Heatherwick and his team created the 1,000 Trees Mall, with 1,000 potted trees on the building’s 1,000 structural columns.
  • In the US, Heatherwick built Little Island, a park on a pier on the banks of the Manhattan River that contained over 100 different species of trees and plants native to New York City.

According to the Heatherwick Studio, all 350 trees on the Tree of Trees will sit in aluminum pots embossed with the royal monogram. In October, after the anniversary celebrations, the trees will be handed over to public organizations, the report says.

The Platinum Anniversary celebration, which includes theatrical performance and lighting of lighthouses at over 1,500 locations across the UK and its Overseas Territories, will take place from 2 to 5 June.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here