London’s famous Tower Bridge has become the first of the city’s major landmark’s to be turned into a heavyweight London 2012 architectural icon.
With just one month to go before the start of the games, a huge set of Olympic rings were lit up by a spectacular new lighting system on the bridge.
The project initially saw IOC sponsor GE and LOCOG partner EDF combine to transform the bridge’s lighting system to mark the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The new technically sophisticated lighting system will produce a fantastic light display every evening on the bridge.
An innovative financial agreement between the Mayor of London, bridge-owners the City of London Corporation, and Games sponsors EDF and GE saw an innovative LED-lighting and cabling system installed at no cost to taxpayers.
It has taken a sizeable team of lighting designers and electricians six months to string together 6,500 feet of linear lights, 1,800 lamps, 1,000 junction boxes with 16,500 feet of cable.
Once the lighting programme was completed, in late June and early July event agency Innovision installed a huge set of Olympic Rings on the top of the bridge.
The 25 metre wide and 11 metre high rings weigh a hefty three tonnes are suspended across the centre of the bridge. Becoming the third landmark, transport hub set of rings following those at Heathrow Airport
and St Pancras International Station.
The aim is to provide a powerful symbol that welcome the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected in the UK capital over the summer.
‘The rings on the bridge will create one of the most iconic images in the run-up to the Games,’ says Innovision CEO Andrew Douglas. ‘We were honoured to have been invited to create and install them on such a treasured and famous building’.
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The rings are part of Mayor of London Presents ‘Look and Celebration’ programme that will see a range of free events, shows and cultural activities take place in each of the capital’s boroughs.
The Thames River will become a visual showpiece for the Olympics during July and August. During the Games themselves each of London‘s famous bridges will be lit up in a display of colour and the mobile Olympic rings first seen in March on a barge will return to the river travelling up and down stream past its famous waterfront landmarks.
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