A Bullet from a Shooting Star

Commissioned by Greenwich Peninsula as part of the London Design Festival 2015, A Bullet from a Shooting Star is an ambitious outdoor sculpture by British artist Alex Chinneck.  

The work takes the form of an upside down electricity pylon, balancing on its tip, leaning at a precarious angle as though shot to earth from the sky. At 35 metres tall, the structure is composed of 466 pieces of steel with a combined length of 1,186 metres.  

Over 1,000 engineered connection points and 25-metre-deep foundations have been used to anchor the 15 tonne structure. Greenwich Peninsula was once home to the largest oil and gas works in Europe and the pylon looks to evoke this industrial history of power generation and supply.  

The latticed steelwork reflects the visual and material language of multiple structures on the Peninsula, particularly the neighbouring redundant gas tower and the tilting structural elements of The O2. Illuminated at night, the sculpture projects a maze of latticed light.