St Pancras sculpture takes orbit to celebrate the magic of mechanics and motion

A new sculpture paying tribute to the wonders of mechanics and engineering has been unveiled at St Pancras International station this morning.

Conrad Shawcross’s The Interpretation of Movement (a 9:8 in blue) is the artist’s largest mechanical work to date, with three optic sails expanding and extracting in an orbit, driven by a complex sequence of gears.

The prospect of seeing the work displayed in the station was described by Tim Marlow, Artistic Director of the Royal Academy, as “mouth-watering”.

The work is this year’s Terrace Wires commission, a public art programme which commissions pieces to be suspended from the station’s Barlow Shed Roof, seen by the 48 million travellers passing through the station each year.

The works are created as a partnership between the Royal Academy of Arts and HS1, the owners of St Pancras, in order to bring art to the community. Last year’s work was Ron Arad’s Thought of Train of Thought, and in 2015 a work was created by Cornelia Parker for the station.