Monday 15 February 2010

Customs House Square, Lunar New Year, Tiger


These 'Giant Digital Origami Tigers' celebrate Chinese New Year in Customs House Square, in front of Customs House at Circular Quay. This art installation was commissioned to raise awareness about the endangered status of tigers, in the Year of the Tiger. The installation is inspired by traditional Chinese lantern-making methods and zhezhi, the art of paper folding, more popularly known by the Japanese name origami. They are made from an aluminium wire frame with a stretched barrisol membrane and are illuminated at night by pulsating lights. The tigers were designed by LAVA (Laboratory for Visionary Architecture) an international design firm that also designed 'Void' during the Vivid Sydney festival last year. The designers also added some humour with the tigers playing soccer, to kick off the FIFA world cup starting later this year.

20 comments:

  1. These tigers look FABULOUS in front of the gray building. The orange color pops and jumps out at you like a tiger in a circus! Starting my day off with a ROAR!

    Jan
    GDP

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  2. Now that's impressive origami. Would love to see it at night.

    Year of the Tiger is my year, too. :)

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  3. Great post, Jim. Love that origami and an important cause. Hope it helps!

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  4. Very cool Chinese origami sculptures of the tiger to raise awareness!

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  5. That looks interesting, haven't been down there yet. Must go and have a look (if and when it stops raining).

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  6. Ann, we've had an unbelievable amount of rain lately. I went for a walk last week, when we actually had some sun one day and saw them setting up the origami tigers at Customs Square. Since we were lucky enough to get some more sun the next day, I rushed down there again to take the snaps.

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  7. Great idea those tigers, especially having them play with a soccer ball.

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  8. very creative, wonder what it would be like when it's light up at night.

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  9. Being a Tiger on my own, this was for sure of delight to see.
    Also am impressed by the nice attitude of the city towards China and its people - in large contrast of many over here.

    A wonderful start into this lunar year for you and into the new week as well.

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  10. This is great, Jim. Thanks for the heads up!

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  11. Fantastic sculptures! And very appropriate both for the lunar year and for WWF's special focus on tigers this year. Love this post.

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  12. These are unbelieveable! Gorgeous! Thanks for dropping by to see "my" world. :D

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  13. These look great. I'm with you about the rain, it just doesn't seem to stop.

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  14. Oh what fun!
    You Sydney bloggers have an ever-changing supply of great stuff to post.

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  15. Very cool tigers and a great contrast to the building!

    P.S. Yes, it's a espresso! :-)

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