Thomas Heatherwick is the most famous designer in the United Kingdom today and has an unquestionable flair for attention-grabbing creations. Before 2010 he was mostly known for a splashy public sculpture in Manchester, ‘B of the Bang’ (2005). Within weeks bits started to fall off. In 2009 it was dismantled. This was his most celebrated failure. But he has had others. An even earlier commission, ‘Blue Carpet’ (2002), a showy repaving of a miserable part of Newcastle city centre, lost its colouring completely within a decade (despite assurances from Heatherwick that its colour would last for a 100 years).
He was propelled to global celebrity in 2012 when an audience of a billion watched his Olympic cauldron light up. His 204 metallic petals, lit by white-robed ephebes, created a global sigh and a single flaming Olympic flower. A centrepiece of Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, it gave rise to an intellectual-property dispute over a startlingly similar design, ultimately settled by LOCOG although fiercely disputed by Heatherwick himself.
All this pizzazz has brought him increasingly ambitious commissions from richer and richer clients from California (corporate HQ) to Singapore (a university) to Abu Dhabi (an underground park).
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