thomas heatherwick to design 2012 olympic cauldron

thomas heatherwick has been announced as designer of the olympic cauldron for the 2012 games in london image © rosie hallam

the organizing committee for the london 2012 olympic games has announced that british architect thomas heatherwick will design the olympic cauldron.

although no images of heatherwick’s plan have yet been released, the cauldron is expected to sit to the north of the main stadium, and be visible from within the arena. the architect, who is currently working on the new routemaster bus for transport for london, recently created britain’s dandelion pavilion at the shanghai world expo.

olympic cauldrons of years past top row: 1976 (montreal, canada); 2010 (vancouver, canada); 2004 (athens, greece) bottom: 2002 (salt lake city, USA); 2000 (sydney, australia); 1992 (barcelona, spain)

heatherwick’s most recent large scale project was the british dandelion pavilion at the 2010 shanghai world expo, covered by designboom

announced at the same time is the choice of choreographer kim gavin as artistic director of the closing ceremonies. gavin, who plans to use his experience organizing the elaborate ‘take that’ circus concerts to create a samba-style olympic celebration, will be joined in his project by costume designer es devlin, the artist behind lady gaga’s monster tour.

via the independent