Meet the Kelpies

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Meet the Kelpies
Full-scale versions to stand 10 storeys high - and be more than just decorative
Severin Carrell
guardian.co.uk,
November 24 2008

They will create one of the most dramatic gateways through which to enter Britain: two vast equine heads, centrepiece of a £49m eco-park near Edinburgh, are to guard the entrance to a canal link connecting the Firth of Forth with the Clyde in Glasgow. Each the height of a 10-storey building, and standing a third taller than the Angel of the North, the heads will dominate a 740-acre park of forests, walks and cycleways, the Helix project, being built on scrubland near Grangemouth refinery. The sculptures will be known as the Kelpies, after the mythical water horses in Scottish lochs and rivers.

The final three-metre-high maquettes have been finished in the studio of sculptor Andy Scott in Glasgow. Over the next weeks, the dark, unpolished steel heads will be galvanised with a bright silvery finish to protect against corrosion. Like two earlier versions already galvanised, and standing nearby in Scott's workshop, each sculpture is made from hundreds of small, hand-cut steel plates welded on to a skeleton of steel bars. One is a rearing head, its neck taut and mouth open, and the second is relaxed.

Early in the new year, they will be scanned by lasers to create two precise 3D digital pictures, with which fabricators can cut from stainless steel an exact scaled-up replica of each plate - the method is used by modern shipbuilders.

The pieces will be 10 times larger than their originals. When installed in 2010 or 2011, each horse's head will be 35 metres in height - 15 metres higher than the Angel of the North - and weigh 400 tonnes. Unlike Antony Gormley's sculpture outside Gateshead, the Kelpies will be functional as well as aesthetic, operating the first lock on the east end of the Forth-Clyde canal near Falkirk. The heads will slowly rock forward and back to push water into the lock and raise boats into the canal.

"When you sail in from Europe or elsewhere in Britain, the first thing you will see will be these colossal horses' heads welcoming you to Scotland," Scott said. This is his largest commission. He has other pieces in Belfast, Sydney, Doncaster and shortly Dubai, but his most famous is the Heavy Horse next to the M8 in Glasgow's East End. A delicate lattice of thin stainless steel bars, it is modelled on one of Scotland's best-known heavy or dray horses, the Clydesdale breed. Scott said it was symbolic of Glasgow's painful transformation from a city built on heavy industry and manufacturing into one known for its garden festival, trade fairs, call centres and other service industries. "It was once a working beast and now it's just a show horse," he said.

That sculpture led directly to his commission to create the Kelpies. He said there was an obvious connection between heavy horses and industrial history. "All the industries along the canal would've used horses, and all the farms along the canal would've used horses," he said. "It's a theme which keeps coming back. I just enjoy playing with the reinterpretation of an enduring theme."

Soon after winning the commission, he discovered another connection. In the 1930s, a huge Clydesdale - reputed to be the world's largest horse - hauled delivery wagons around Falkirk for Barrs soft drinks company, creators of Irn-Bru. More than 19 hands high (190cm), the horse was named Carnera after the Italian world champion heavyweight boxer of the time, Primo Carnera. "He was a local legend," Scott said.

The sculptor said he had reacted with "bemused detachment" when a miniature of the Angel of the North was valued at £1m on BBC1's Antiques Roadshow earlier this month. Even though this suggests his four model Kelpies may someday fetch a similar sum, he says it is irrelevant. What matters is Gormley's success in reinvigorating public art: "Other councils might now see public art as a true investment, not just as an add-on. The Angel of the North has had a fantastic role in raising the profile of figurative art."

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