Cambridge is a city where interesting sculptures and statues are at every corner, some ancient and some significantly less so. This post is about some of the pieces that caught my eye starting with this one outside the Department of Engineering. Dating from 1967 it is called Construction in Aluminium and was made by Kenneth Martin. Apparently it represents a formula used in jet propulsion and is one of about 40 sculptures in Cambridge with the specific aim of bringing public spaces back to life after World War II.
This extremely odd looking sculpture actually has quite a nice story behind it. Called Snowy it was designed by Gary Webb and unveiled in 2012 to look like what sounds like a lovely local character, Snowy Farr, who dressed colourfully with his cat sitting on top of his hat while white mice ran around the rim. He was a well known collector for Guide Dogs for the Blind and died in 2007.
This bizarre looking sculpture is called Talos and was created in 1950 by Michael Ayrton. In Greek mythology Talos was a bronze giant who protected the island of Crete. My researches into its origins lead to lots of speculation that its faceless, armless representation may be a reaction to the horrors of the Second World War. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that feels true.
And then there’s this quite striking sculpture of a bear and its cub. Not far from the train station despite my best efforts, and that of others on the internet, I haven’t been able to find out who created it or why.
And so ends my posts about Cambridge. Next up in the schedule is Scotland (from my trip in October last year) and then Athens (from my trip in May this year).
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