Blackpool's Comedy Carpet - further research

http://www.comedycarpet.com

The work itself 

- Comedy carpet is a stage for events and performances. 

- The carpet is designed as a cross shape, therefore, it links the entrance of the Blackpool Tower to the beach and connects the North and South sides of the promenade. 

- Laid out in a grid with 10 slabs each 

- The Carpet can be read from different angles and from different heights including from on top of Blackpool Tower as the font varies in size from a few centimetres to a metre.  


Design/ Research 

- Gordon Young was inspired by the inside of the Blackpool Tower and wanted to bring the quality and over the top sense outside. 

- Gordon was most inspired by the fantasy Viennese Baroque ballroom and Arabesque circus inside of the tower 

- Young chose to create a Comedy Carpet as he claimed 'Comedy in all its guises is a big part of who we are; it has its own social history and a very important place in that history is Blackpool.' He also claimed that many photos of comedians always had the background as the Blackpool Tower and many comedians had performed in Blackpool for decades. 

Making 

- The carpet at first glance looks as if it has been painted but it is made out of 30mm solid granite cast into high-quality concrete panels. 

- The carpet has 160,000 letters

- The process of making each of the 320 slabs involved many complex stages from cutting, sorting, fettling and laying out each of the letters to a three-stage casting process, curing, trimming, grinding and polishing.

- Materials were gathered from china and India to make the carpet. Red and black granite were gathered from China and stainless steal was got from India.  

MAP

http://www.comedycarpet.com