CORTEN
WHAT IS CORTEN?
Corten steel, also known as weathering steel and sometimes written as Cor-ten is recognisable by its distinctive bright orange tones. What looks like rust at first glance is part of an oxidisation process that actually protects the steel from further weathering. Corten steel includes nickel, copper and chromium.
CORTEN IN ART
SCULPTURES: Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North, built in the 1990s, is made of Corten. It is 20m tall and is 54m wide, weighs 200 tonnes and has 500 tonnes of concrete foundations. It stands in Gateshead, next to the A1 motorway.
Richard Serra’s site-specific, large-scale sculptures are often in Corten. His 17m high Fulcrum, made of five sheets of Corten spot welded together, sits at the western side of Liverpool Street Station. It has three spaces through which you can walk into the sculpture.
CORTEN IN ARCHITECTURE
Corten steel is the only trademarked material in the top 100 Hot List of architecture, interiors and design magazine Dezeen.
Amongst its top choices for Corten being used in architecture include an extension to a London home to house an art collection by Gianni Botsford Architects and and extension to an eighteenth century Belgian farmhouse by Puzzles Architecture.
Other notable buildings featuring Corten include:
- Barclays Center Sports Arena in Brooklyn, New York by SHoP Architects, which used 12,000 Corten panels.
- Leeds Broadcasting Tower by Bath-based Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. The 23-storey building has won numerous awards including the 2010 Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s Best Tall Buildings Award
- Ron Arad Architects-designed Design Museum in Holon, Israel.
- Australian Centre for Contemporary Art by architects Wood Marsh in Melbourne.