STEELING BEAUTY?: Metal man with no name sitting pretty in race to replace towers

SO FAR, it is only an idea that has stepped off the drawing board but this sentinel of steel has emerged as a front-runner to overlook Sheffield from near where the Tinsley Towers acted as a landmark for Yorkshire travellers.
By The Newsroom
Published 29th Sep 2011, 08:39 BST

At 40 metres high, the stainless steel figure on a coal-black column facing the M1 and Meadowhall would be twice the height of the Angel of the North.

The man behind the plan, sculptor Steve Mehdi, said: “The design embodies the generations of workers who have left their mark and their memories on the landscape. It looks inward, contemplating the past, but out on an ever-changing landscape of technology and invention.

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“The statue delivers a message saying ‘we are big, we are modern and we can take on the world’.”

Sheffield City Council is looking for a monument for the Lower Don Valley to symbolise the “city region”, and Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Rotherham Council are among the organisations backing this one.

The Chamber is looking for suggestions for a suitable name – and it seems likely that variations of C-3PO will be thought not dignified enough, although the resemblance to the Star Wars robot may well play a part in what it comes to be called on the streets of South Yorkshire.

The idea is to have it in place by 2013, the centenary of the invention of stainless steel.

Related topics:BeautySouth YorkshireSheffieldSheffield City CouncilMeadowhall