Designers of London Olympic cauldron deny copying claims
New York practice Atopia claims cauldron design is strikingly similar to an idea it presented to Locog board in early 2008
The designers of the London Olympic cauldron have made strident denials of the suggestion that their scheme was inspired by an earlier project by a different practice.
"It's absolute rubbish, complete and utter spurious nonsense," said Thomas Heatherwick, responding to the claim that designs by New York practice Atopia for a pavilion, commissioned by Locog in 2007-8, bore striking similarities.
"To design the cauldron was an opportunity of a lifetime. Someone like me would never fritter away that chance by not using it for my passion – which is to develop new ideas. The idea that your commissioner tells you what to do would have the immediate opposite effect."
He said the brief given by Locog was to "design a cauldron that would sit on the roof of the Olympic stadium and have no moving parts." Instead, his studio came up with a design assembled from a series of copper petals, fixed to long stems to form a flower-like structure on the floor of the arena.
But it is claimed both the narrative sequence and sculptural form is like Atopia's idea for a One Planet Pavilion, presented to the Locog board in early 2008. Heatherwick remains adamant that the cauldron design is his alone, citing a project he did as a student in 1993 for a series of awards that came together to form one circular chalice.
"If there's any possible precedent, it's in my own work. It's wonderful that the success of the cauldron has captured people's imagination … But it sounds like it's captured some people's imagination a bit too much."
Danny Boyle, artistic director of the opening ceremony, said: "Before Tuesday, neither of us had seen, heard of or knew about the existence of the illustrations. Thomas and I evolved the idea for the cauldron over many months of discussions. I categorically deny that Locog briefed us to work with, develop or implement any pre-existing idea that had been presented to them. This is total nonsense and must not be allowed to spoil our appreciation of Thomas's magnificent work."
Martin Green, former head of ceremonies at Locog, who briefed Boyle and Heatherwick, also denied any knowledge of Atopia's work. "I'd never even heard of them," he said. "Locog was an organization of 7,000 people, and we were in a completely separate department. I can categorically say that we did not and never would have used somebody else's work to influence the design of the cauldron. The idea came out of discussions between Danny Boyle, Thomas Heatherwick and myself. It was a completely natural and organic process."
But Atopia maintains that the cauldron is similar to its own earlier design. "This is outrageous," said practice co-director Jane Harrison. "Everyone in the design industry knows how easily ideas can be shared in these big organisations. The problem goes far beyond this case alone."
Recounting Atopia's involvement, Harrison claimed the agency's pitch to Locog took the form of a script, detailing exactly how the "umbrella" elements would come together to form a canopy in the stadium and be distributed back to the competing countries after the Games. She said the text was identical to the captions that appear on their sketchbook document, published by the Guardian.
"It's a very visual piece of material," said Harrison. "We held our sketches back because we wanted to safeguard our intellectual property. But that obviously didn't help."
