ArcelorMittal Orbit, Olympic Park In Stratford, London

Jay Merrick of The Independent said of Orbit that "its sculptural power lies in its ability to suggest an unfinished form in the process of becoming something else", describing how its artistic riskiness elevated it above the banal artworks of the public art movement that have been built elsewhere in Britain's towns and cities. Merrick was of the opinion that it would be either loved or hated, being a design which is "beautifully fractious, and not quite knowable".
Jonathan Glancey of The Guardian described Orbit as "Olympian in ambition" and a "fusion between striking art and daring engineering", and said that, the Aquatics Centre apart, it represented the architecturally striking Joker in the pack, given that the rest of the landscaping and architecture for the Games "promises little to get excited about". He believed it would become a "genuine eyecatcher" for the Olympics television coverage, with its extraordinary form being a "strange and enticing marriage of sorts" between the Eiffel Tower and the un-built early Soviet era Tatlin's Tower, with the biblical Tower of Babel as "best man".
Describing it as looking like a "catastrophic collision between two cranes", the Daily Mail reported how the structure had been immediately been nicknamed the 'Eyeful Tower', as well as reflecting specific internet comments of it being 'a rollercoaster that costs £19million a go', or that it resembled 'twisted spaghetti', 'horrific squiggles' and 'Meccano on crack'. The Times also reported the description "Godzilla of public art".
With regard to its potential as a lasting visitor attraction, Mark Brown of The Guardian reflected on the mixed fortunes of other large symbolic London visitor attractions, the popular but loss making Thames Tunnel, the Skylon tower, dismantled on the orders of Winston Churchill, and the successful London Eye.