Atlanta, meet the soon-to-be most-Instagrammed spot in Midtown: "Stealth."
The 33-foot-tall concrete sculpture by Atlanta native Tristan Al-Haddad has been in the works for two and a half years and is approaching completion.
The work was commissioned by Cousins Properties for Promenade II, across 15th Street from the Woodruff Arts Center at 1230 Peachtree St. N.E.
Al-Haddad said “Stealth” was purposefully designed on the site, of the site and for the site.
He drew inspiration from Promenade II’s surrounding architecture, such as the vertical lines from the High Museum of Art. The reinforced concrete sculpture weighs about 68,000 pounds above ground. The piece is made from a special mix of concrete that includes stone and crushed sands made from Adairsville granite to give “Stealth” its blue-black sheen.
Al-Haddad, a 25-year Midtown resident, is also the owner and creative force behind Formations Studio. In the other half of what Al-Haddad calls his "double life," he is also on faculty at Georgia Institute of Technology School of Architecture.
“Stealth” was nothing more than a 3-D model for a year and a half. After about 200 drafts, 10 full-time studio staffers worked for eight months to cast and create it. Finally, the Formations Studio team moved to the site in May to install the sculpture.
“It’s certainly gone longer than we have anticipated, but honestly, when you do something so experimental and radical … you can’t anticipate everything,” Al-Haddad said. “It’s been a lot of that sort of figuring things out in the field.”
Al-Haddad estimated “Stealth” will be completed and officially unveiled to the public by early November.
The Georgia Tech graduate said “Stealth” is not a narrative piece in that his goal with it was not to tell a story but instead to create and provoke an emotion in the viewer.
“If the piece is really about creating a kind of visceral effect, and a visceral emotion, then I think we’ve succeeded,” Al-Haddad said.
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