4th Plinth – Trafalgar Square
British artist Yinka Shonibare’s scale model of Nelson’s HMS Victory in a Bottle is on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square for 18 months until November 2011.
We were asked to solve the main problem of how to stop condensation obscuring the view of the ship and how to protect the materials that the bottle and the artwork are made of. Over 18 months the bottle will go through all of the seasons. Our solution is invisible, completely integrated into the artwork. We also devised the lighting to best display the work.
The Ship in a bottle and Nelson's Column. The model can send out its own distress signal – but through a pay as you go SIM card not flags. There’s a fault monitoring system built in so if anything goes wrong a fast call maintenance team will get there quickly to sort it out.
4th Plinth is one project in our continuing story of nearly 50 years of delivering special cultural projects.