![]() The cauldron was given the codename "Betty" (after the dog of the opening ceremony's executive producer Catherine Ugwu). Strict security and secrecy was paramount during construction and testing. 15 km of wiring went into the control panels and another 5.5 km into the cauldron itself. The mechanical and electrical engineering of the cauldron was complex, due to the large number of moving parts. The gas burners were designed by Australian firm FCT Flames, which specialises in the design, manufacture and operation of flame effects for ceremonial events. The cauldron burned natural gas, with a variable burn rate. It was significantly smaller and lighter than those of previous Games: the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics cauldron weighed 300 tonnes. The cauldron measured 8.5 metres high, 8 metres across when flat on the ground, and weighed 16 tonnes. The work on the cauldron at Stage One took 25,000 man hours. ![]() Three full sets were made: for Olympic and Paralympic cauldrons, with a third for rehearsals and testing. The petals were inscribed with the name of the competing country and "The XXX Olympiad - London 2012". Each was hand-beaten over its own individual MDF former and took eight hours to produce. Each 3mm thick petal was unique: designed individually using 3D modelling, hand beaten from copper sheeting, and polished by skilled craftsmen. Production began in January 2012 in the workshops of Tockwith, near Harrogate-based firm Stage One. The Olympic cauldron at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, opening out prior to being extinguished. a representation of the extraordinary, albeit transitory, togetherness that the Olympic Games symbolise" The Olympic cauldron comprised 204 separate copper 'petals', and the Paralympic one 164 - one petal from each of the competing nations. Heatherwick wanted the cauldron to be a focal point, like an altar in a church, and he described it as symbolising "the coming together in peace of 204 nations for two weeks of sporting competition. But the same man who’d said that to us was the first person to say yes.” Heatherwick said “When we proposed the most moving parts ever in an Olympic cauldron, we were nervous and feeling a bit guilty about that. This was due to the failure of the cauldron at the 2010 Winter Olympics at Vancouver, when one of the four moving parts of the cauldron had failed to work. Īnother important part of the brief was "Whatever you do, no moving parts". Our role was to design a 'moment': how could we make this moment manifest in the object? We didn't just want to make a bowl on a stick.” He was also keen to avoid the competitive aspect of designs for the previous Olympics: "We were aware that cauldrons have been getting bigger, higher and fatter as each Olympics has happened and we felt that we shouldn't try to be even bigger than the last ones." Heatherwick and his team spent two months researching and examining ideas, including a weekend spent looking at all previous Olympic cauldron designs. We asked people: ‘Which cauldron do you remember?’ And the answer was: none. Heatherwick said “When Danny Boyle asked us to do this we felt this huge responsibility. It was also to be transient, like the coming-together of nations during each Games. It was to be of a human scale, and to be placed among the people in the stadium rather than towering over it. The brief was that the cauldron should be something that connected all the nations, with the idea of them each bringing a constituent part of it, and also have a story or narrative. It's really what you're there to do: to light the cauldron."ĭanny Boyle, in Danny Boyle: Creating Wonder by Amy Raphael, 2013, p. It's a key moment in the opening ceremony, and it's what all the other events are leading up to. We wanted something that had some humanity and warmth about it rather than shock and awe. ![]() Those traditional cauldrons have no humanity about them at all they're just vast, bombastic pieces that weight fifty tons. I was really clear that wasn't going to happen. The organisers had already decided that the torch was going to be on the roof, which is where they always are. ![]() "But we had to fight to have it on the floor of the stadium. ![]()
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