Just two months before the Olympic Games begins, London Mayor Boris Johnson unveiled the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower, a steel sculpture 114 metres high, which will serve as a new landmark in east London as well as an observation tower. The sculpture features three or four different helixes, bands or walkways. As an observation tower, it gives wonderful view of the area, including the Olympic stadium and park and the river Thames, and London's West End. Mayor Boris Johnson repeated how he had encountered and persuaded the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of ArcelorMittal the world's largest steelmaker, to support the building of the tower. "I said look we need something in the Olympic park that gave a sign of the confidence of London, a city coming out of recession, the stuff we can do, a way of bringing people to east London, bringing tourists, bringing visitors to buy and live here, and he got it immediately and after a while we got this," Mittal said he had agreed as long as the project used his steel but the tower turned out to be a bit different from what he had expected. "We got into a discussion and we began scribbling what sort of sculpture we should make. From a 20-30 metre height we ended with a 114-metre sculpture," However, comparing it to the elegant Eiffel Tower in Paris, many people find the twisted steel ugly, while some call it a construction toy and a crazy tornado slide. ◆ 追蹤更多華視影音及圖文新聞: 1.用Plurk追蹤華視影音及圖文新聞:追蹤 2.用Twitter追蹤華視影音及圖文新聞:追蹤
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