Lucien den Arend

Steel mesh construction of ivy and concrete 

Lucien den Arend

The new city of Zoetermeer, in The Netherlands, was projected over the old village which became its old center - Buytenwegh De Leyens was one of the new areas. For a school in that sector, Lucien den Arend made six concrete sculptures comprised of two groups - one with three concave sculptures and one with two convex ones.

Homage to Richard Serra

Homage to Richard Serra

It would be appropriate here  to acknowledge Richard Serra , as the similarities when working with concave wall is unavoidable 

I would like to use a similar technique when applying the concrete mixture to the large steel mold. I tried to do this on the smaller practice molds, but they were too small for it to work properly 

Second Base

The single base alone wasn't strong enough for the weight of the concrete so I made a second base to put against the first to keep the mold from buckling 

First Base

The First Curve

The fourth Practice Mold

I like these little practice molds. Because I made them from a plastic mold they had a beautiful glossy finish, the type of finish I was trying to hard to achieve in object I.....I made four molds, each with a slightly different curve, trying to find out which one would best work on a bigger scale. nOt all of them stood up by them selves, which was most important to work out.

The Third Wall

I didn't realise I never actually took a photo of this mold when it was complete. It was the most successful of all four and stood very stably on its own. I worked out on this one, that the base had to be much thicker than the others, so unlike the last three that had been made from concrete poured form above, this one had to be thrown from a height but on angle for gravity to work in creating a thicker base for it to stand on.

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The Plastic Mold

second mold reflection

write about what worked  and what didn't. and what i want to try for next time round

second cast

put in photos

Second and Third Cast

 I was very happy with these two molds. Something that the camera couldn't pick up was the incredibly smooth glossy texture of both these curves

first cast

put in

creating the first mold