"This is why Kapoor and Balmond have emerged as embattled heroes of public art. Their Orbit tower is not consensual, or easy to make sense of. It is wild and unexpected. It is, I believe, the most exciting British public artwork since House. Those who commissioned and created it deserve acclaim for choosing electricity over dull consensus."

“I’m thinking about the mythical wonders of the world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Tower of Babel. It’s as if the collective will comes up with something that has resonance on an individual level and so becomes mythic. I can claim to take that as a model for a way of thinking. Art can do it, and I’m going to have a damn good go. I want to occupy the territory, but the territory is an idea and a way of thinking as much as a context that generates objects.”

“Jerusalem is all about a very special relationship between the ground and the sky. This work attempts to bring the two together.”

“Architects have always hoped to find a way to skip that stage between design and finished building.”

“It will remain most definitely.It will need periodic polishing – it’s there”

“The UK has two things, the arts and education, and both of them it pushes into the corner. It's the hugest, hugest mistake. Why do British ministers meet anyone from the arts other than to cut them? Compared to Germany, Britain has got quite a long way to go there, frankly.”

“So that actually adds another dimension but that’s not the reason . We really felt that the spiritual and immaterial aspects of his work would really make for a strong statement with respect to a work paying tribute to Teddy..”