Fulcrum

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“Fulcrum” by Richard Serra, 1987
Broadgate exit, Liverpool Street Station
London, October 2009

“A couple of weeks back I was in London and as usual was running late so rather than plunging into the bowels of the Tube I caught a cab through the bowels of The City to Liverpool Street Station for my train up to Norwich. As I rattled my bags across the Bishopsgate cobbles I saw the tops of the four massive sheets of steel that make up ‘Fulcrum.’ As I came closer the rest was revealed. There, nestled in the belly of a small amphitheatre that led to the Broadgate entrance was the first Serra sculpture I’d seen since Bilbao. It was unmistakably a Serra. I walked into the station, checked my ticket and platform then wandered back out for a closer look. Notwithstanding the massiveness of Fulcrum – it reaches 55 feet into the air and must – it still works on a human scale. While Fulcrum looks at first glance like a pile of rusted steel headed for the scrap-yard you can soon see how it works at this site. You can lean against it and watch the world go by.” (Sculpture you want to punch – Richard Serra’s “Fulcrum”, Crikey)