Other ideas considered before The Spire was built

davidmaguire_

I quite like the Spire but what were the other ideas considered before they decided to pick the Spire. I know they considered an arch but does anyone else know or remember other plans they considered before they decided to construct the Spire.

loyatemu

iirc there was a design competition. some of the entries were fairly tacky - giant statues of Jesus etc.

Skatedude

I do remember that the decision was made to keep the tree's after multiple protests. but the builder thought they were in the way so removed them.

fleet_admiral

I remember seeing something that resembled a giant jenga was one of the proposed designs

greenbicycle

yeah there was an international competition held for different designs so lots of things were considered.

As far as I know one of the reasons the spire was chosen because it was apolitical.

The big jesus' didn't stand a chance!

Hollister11

I Thnk the spire is stupid. They couldn't of picked a more hideous thing

JohnFalstaff

Hollister11 wrote: »

I Thnk the spire is stupid. They couldn't of picked a more hideous thing

I went to see an exhibition of the various proposals at the City Council Offices on Woodquay. They were displayed there before the final decision was taken. Some of them were absolutely insane.

I remember one intricate design that involved a wall with 20 ft tall statues of the 1916 leaders lined up against it, about to face the bullets.

Another was a proposal of some sort of rainbow structure. But the person designing it had only used 4 different coloured biros (green, black, red and blue) so there was a colour reference chart at the bottom left of the design that you had to keep glancing at to work out which colour was which.

A third proposal was some sort of phallus that could be raised or lowered like an erection - or at least that's how I remember it looking at the time. But it could well have been some sort of artistic monument to liberty in the mind of its creator.

I think we were pretty lucky with the spire all things considered.