When you enter the home of the Atlanta Falcons, you will root for the Falcons, dammit.
With ownership set to unveil the team’s new $1.5 billion stadium in 2017, fans should prepare not for shiny turf nor high-tech screens but a massive piece of metal. In one year, Atlanta taxpayers, who contributed more than $200 million to the project, will come face-to-face with their creation right at the stadium gates: a falcon statue that might as well be a four-story building barricading the way.
Hungarian artist Gábor Miklós Szőke, who is overseeing the construction of the largest bird statue in the world, is taking his record-breaking work quite seriously. Szőke says he came up with the gargantuan dimensions — 41.5 feet high with a 64-foot wingspan — by analyzing the movement of real falcons. He then worked with engineers to design the statute, which will be made of stainless steel, concrete and bronze.
“It will be produced in Budapest,” Szőke told USA Today, “and then there will be 40-foot containers which will ship the structural elements to Atlanta. It will go through installation at the stadium, and will take two months. By the end of it, over 100 people will have worked on the falcon.”
Another 53 people will be responsible for producing artwork to go on display within the stadium. Falcons owner Arthur M. Blank teamed up with the Savannah College of Art and Design to commission various artists, 48 percent of whom are based in Georgia.
To the people who see fine art clashing with a violent sport like football? Apparently the fans wanted this.
Of the 1,200 fans surveyed at Falcons games in 2015, the majority were in favor of an art collection in the new stadium. The owners expect ticket sales to increase now that they are promoting more than football.
“We almost hesitate to call it a stadium,” said Mike Egan, senior vice president of Blank’s organization the AMB Group. “We think of it as an entertainment venue. The art experience ties in with the architecture of the building, and it’s all about creating an atmosphere that gets people off of their sofas, out from in front of their 60-inch TVs, and excited and energized about coming into the building. We think art plays a huge roll in that.”