Heads-up on London's levitating installation

British artist Alex Chinneck's new installation - Take my Lightning but Don't Steal my Thunder - magically levitates over the Piazza. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

At the beginning of October, a new "cloud" created by innovative British artist Alex Chinneck, will be on display in London's Covent Garden.

Chinneck's new installation, Take my Lightning but Don't Steal my Thunder, will suspend reality and see a section of the Market Building magically levitate over the Piazza.

Borrowing from the symbolism of clouds in Chinese culture, the "cloud" installation represents "good luck and fortune", for Chinese tourists and visitors celebrating the Golden Week holiday in London.

His new artwork will combine art, architecture and theatre design, blurring familiarity with fantasy to transform an ordinary everyday view of Covent Garden's Piazza into the extraordinary.

Inspired by the performance culture that's synonymous with the neighborhood, the 29-year-old artist and his team will conjure the illusion of a 40-foot-long building broken from its stone base and floating over 10 feet into the air with apparent and astonishing weightlessness.

The installation is modeled on the original architecture of the 184-year-old Market Building and takes residence on the East Piazza from October 2-24.

"My objective is to create an accessible artwork that makes a harmonious but breathtaking contribution to its historic surroundings, leaving a lasting and positive impression upon the cultural landscape of Covent Garden and in the minds of its many visitors," Chinneck said.

"The hovering building introduces contemporary art to traditional architecture, performing a magic trick of spectacular scale to present the everyday world in an extraordinary way."

The construction of the hovering installation for Covent Garden will take a team of over 50 professionals, consultants and tradesmen across the British industry, engineering and construction a full three months to craft, paint and construct. Chinneck will work with a cast of architectural consultants, structural engineers, steel fabricators, carpenters, carvers, casting specialists, set builders, scenery painters, water-jet cutters, hot-wire cutters and even a robot to design and fabricate the 40-foot sculpture.

Beverley Churchill, Creative Director of Capco Covent Garden said: "Over the years, we have hosted some truly awe-inspiring artworks in Covent Garden. The Piazza is a unique canvas in London, an ever-changing open air gallery with a daily captive audience of tens of thousands. Alex's new work is perhaps our most ambitious commission to date, and will see the area's familiar architecture re-imagined with a touch of magic.