Tuesday 9 July 2013

Shell Centre, Belvedere Road SE1

It's an odd position for a great piece, on a service road guarding the entrance to an underground car park, but Eric Aumonier's Shell Ball has a grandeur and quality that shines out.
The ball is built up of latitudes of contrasting stone, polished granite for the poles and the tropics alternating with carved limestone. The equator has Shell Oil's ubiquitous trade mark scallops around it, against the sea.
The piece was commissioned by the architects of the Shell Centre, Easton and Robertson, and presented to the company when the building was finished in 1963.

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