Rugby World Cup sculpture unveiled

MICHAEL FOX/Stuff.co.nz

SMALL BEGINNING: Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast and Weta Workshop's Richard Taylor with the miniature of a sculpture which has been proposed as a centre piece for Wellington's hosting of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

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Weta Workshop boss Richard Taylor today unveiled their design for a statue proposed as Wellington's centrepiece for next year's Rugby World Cup.

Made of wrought iron, concrete and tinted cast concrete, the miniature version was shown to media at Weta's Miramar studio today.

Taylor said they were "delighted" to be given the opportunity.

"It will just be a wonderful reminder of a wonderful moment in our country's sporting history."

Taylor said he expected some debate but hoped it would be seen as relevant.

"We realised very early on that it needed to be a sculpture that not only celebrated the love that we have for rugby in our city and in our country but also a piece that would represent Wellington," he said.

The statue depicts players jumping in a line out and was a "celebration of the pursuit of the ball".

"A lot of rugby is about the individual pursuit and the coming together of two aggressive forces in the form of the ruck but the lineout is a moment in the game where there's almost the celebratory pursuit of the ball and that's what we tried to capture in this sculpture."

It created a "rift" when the two teams came together and this was symbolised in the sculpture by Wellington's fault lines coming together in the sculpture.

Island Bay and the city were represented in the sculpture with clouds rolling over the city, with the clouds coming together to form the players.

The players were represented in more historic clothing while the ball would be polished to high sheen and would be positioned so it caught the sun.

It would be built at Weta and taken to its site in pieces.

"To us it was an amazing thing for the council to say, rugby, art, why not put up a beautiful sculpture that celebrates the sport."

The dimensions were not yet finalised but Mr Taylor said it would be around four or five metres tall.

"It will be a permanent reminder of the celebration of rugby. It's our national sport, it's in our DNA," he said.

Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast said it would be a monument which embodied the World Cup and paid tribute to the city's thriving artistic success.

It was "an opportunity not to showcase Wellington but to showcase Weta and all that they do for the world".

"I think it's exciting, it does exactly the sort of thing that we'd asked."

While costing the Wellington City Council $350,000, Weta would also donate its time and resources and expected about a third of its staff would work on it.

Members of the Wellington rugby team would be bought in to act as models to base the statue's players on.

The players would pose in various game-type situations before the photos were blown up to scale and their expressions, stances and musculature copied in intricate detail by the Weta team.

Possible sites include the Fran Wilde walkway leading up to Westpac Stadium, the grassy area between the Wellington Rowing Club and St John's Bar on the waterfront and near the New Zealand Rugby Union Headquarters.

Taylor said he preferred it to be somewhere near Frank Kitts Park but the walk way up to the Stadium might be the most practical solution.

The council will decide on the sculpture on Wednesday following a period of consultation, with the final sign off happening in June.

- © Fairfax NZ News