Goodwood Festival of Speed Installation 2015 | Gerry Judah

Architecture, INSTALLATION, Landscape & Urban planning

Goodwood Festival of Speed Installation 2015

A twisted white tower holding two cars on top was the installation Gerry Judah has designed for this year’s edition of the Goodwood Car Festival. This was the 18th year sculptor Gerry Judah has made an installation for this event, every year dedicated to a different brand. As he has stated: “the hardest thing about designing these sculptures is trying to avoid any similarity, any conceptual connection”. The sculpture had 40 meters high and about 110 tons weight and was exhibited between 25 and 28 June at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, in West Sussex. The concept for this piece was Kodo – the inspiration for Mazda cars, which is “really about breathing life and soul into an object”, according to Kevin Rice, Mazda Design director. Instead of steel sheets that were used for previous designs, this year the sculptor has used stacked overlapping bars, that were assembled in modules in the factory. The modules were later fitted in place using a crane and careful supervision from the team. The sculpture had displayed two race cars on the top. The first one was Mazda’s 787B, the same car that won the 24 Hours of Le Man in 1991, establishing two records, as the “first (and so far the only) Japanese manufacturer to win Le Mans, as well as the only non-piston engine car to ever win”. The bottom car was Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo, which was virtual up until now, and was especially built for the sculpture. This was the first Goodwood Festival of Speed edition that had a concept car on the top of the sculpture. Simple and elegant, the installation gives the “illusion of an imbalanced balance”. At the same time, it is a beautiful metaphor of the “race” between the old and the new, the vintage and the modern. A competition for growth and development. A motivation to reach for the skies, in theme with this years motto: “racing on the edge”.