Ventilation Shaft Cover, Pimlico

Ventilation shaft cover, probably to a underground car park, by Eduardo Paolozzi, installed 1982. The sculpture is located in a public open space between nos. 1 and 2 Bessborough Street.

MATERIALS: cast steel panels and stainless steel on a thin cast steel plinth.

EXTERIOR: the overall aesthetic is high tech with exposed and celebrated mechanical features and an anthropomorphic robotic quality. A square sculpture, measuring approximately 12m high, the ventilation shaft cover comprises cast panels on four sides to a height of approximately 4m. Each panel has irregularly arranged cast images of mechanical parts from machinery, aircraft, mechanical diggers, insects, fish, clocks and geometric shapes in a variety of sizes. On the lower panel of the south side is the cast script ‘E.PAOLOZZI/LONDON 1982’. Stacked above the panels are two tanks separated by latticed panels; the rivets are exposed. Each tank has louvred panels to the west and east sides and solid panels to the north and south. From the base of the lowest tank, stainless steel pipes on a frame project at each corner to the top of the grilles. Other pipes of varying diameters are attached to the south and north faces of the lower tank.