For one week in September London Design Festival wants to take over Trafalgar Square, home to Nelson’s Column and the epicentre of London, transforming it into a crazy golf course designed by some of the world’s most renowned architects, artists and designers. It will be futuristic, functional, fun and free for the public to play.
Paul Smith, curator and ambassador for the project, will transform the steps from the National Gallery into a riot of different coloured stripes, topped by a neo-classical clubhouse that echoes the museum, but has a turf roof and putters for columns. The late Zaha Hadid designed an undulating course with two levels that traces the shadow of Nelson’s Column.
Other holes include Tom Dixon’s, with its funnel and nest of pneumatic tubes through which golf balls will hurtle; a circuitous maze by Mark Wallinger; a netted driving range by the Japanese studio Atelier Bow-Wow; and a cross-section by Ordinary Architecture of a giant pigeon, through whose gut golf balls will travel.
Additional design teams include Camille Walala, HAT Projects with Tim Hunkin, and NEON. Each will create a miniature pavilion that makes an entertaining, playable statement about the future of architecture, filling the square with Pop Art colours and inventive forms that will amuse and inspire both adults and children alike.
An Intervention by Paul Smith and The London Design Festival
Paul Smith is the curator and ambassador for the project, the most ambitious of the London Design Festival’s decade-long tradition of interventions in Trafalgar Square, which have included a giant chess set and a light show performed by an assembly line of robots. These popular installations bring an awareness of design and its possibilities to the centre of the city and are enjoyed by millions of Londoners and international visitors.
Supporters of this project will bring about a public takeover of Trafalgar Square, transforming it into a free, colourful and playful arena of Visionary Crazy Golf. It will attract a wide, public audience, and inspire the next generation of creatives. Thousands will be able to play the course, and millions more will watch and enjoy this experience, both in the square and through media. They will all interact in different ways with the imaginations of some of the most inventive minds in the world. The Festival needs to raise £120,000 to make this happen and is using Kickstarter to run this campaign along with Twitter and Facebook
Follow the campaign with #VisionaryGolf.
London Design Festival 2016, 17 – 25 September, www.londondesignfestival.com