Above Below Beneath Above, 2014 – Olafur Elíasson

Fifty-six steel columns twist up from the pavement to the ceiling of the entrance area of Toyo Ito's Market Street Tower in Singapore. The columns, all approximately fifteen metres in height, vary widely in form and orientation, creating a diverse portico of undulating roots leading into the skyscraper. Sixteen crystals hung among the roots combine two related polyhedra into a single design: the faces of the purple glass core are based on pentagons, while the steel outer frame consists of triangles and squares. The artwork picks up on the ecological concept of the building and endows it with aerating roots that cement the architecture in the city and provide an organic transition from the street into the foyer. Unlike a regular urban grid, the columns vary in form and orientation, so the portico reads as an irregular boundary between building and street.

Research:
Each of the sixteen crystals combines two related polyhedra: a purple glass core with pentagonal faces and a steel outer frame of triangles and squares. The dual relationship between the two polyhedra was used to derive the frame from the core (or the reverse). The analysis covered proportions, joint geometry for the steel frame, and suspension and load transfer for the crystals among the columns.