Grön eld - Umeå, - Abstract Public Sculptures on Waymarking.com

The glass sculpture "Grön eld" (green fire) was designed by Vicke Lindstrand. It consists of three twisted pillars of nine meters height, resembling green flames that converge at the top. The surface is uneven and thus scatters the sunlight as well as the light that is generated by the lamps installed in the floor when it gets dark.

Each of the three pillars consists of one thousand green glass plates that are nine millimeters thick, placed one on top of the other and glued together by Lennart Johansson. The weight of the sculpture is 45 tons, it stands on a concrete base at Järnvägstorget in front of the railway station of Umeå. To cope with the temperature fluctuations, a two-component adhesive (Epoxylim) was used.

The sculpture was commissioned in 1970 by the head of the HSB, Sven Wallander, and inaugurated during the same year. At that time the sculpture was the tallest glass sculpture in the world.

In December 2013 Lennart Johansson told the press, that he had hidden a picture of Mao Zedong in one of the glass flames. During the rebuilding of Järnvägstorget, which was carried out in 2013/2014, the plantings around the sculpture were replaced with a plinth cast in dark concrete.

Sources:
Grön eld, Umeå (english Wikipedia entry)
Grön eld, Umeå (swedish Wikipedia entry)
Article on the hidden picture (swedish only)

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