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Juxtapositions in Trafalgar Square: tip-offs to creativity in art and science

Nature Medicine volume 19, pages 1222–1226 (2013)Cite this article

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One of the delights and highlights of a trip to London is a visit to Trafalgar Square, the city's premier public space. For the past 175 years, Trafalgar Square has been England's favorite site for political rallies and national celebrations. It is also the home of the National Gallery, one of the premier art museums in the world. In the past few years, Trafalgar Square has taken on a new venture: it has become the site of a living laboratory of discovery where as many as 40,000 tourists each day can experience firsthand what creativity and innovation are all about. Before telling you about this exciting new development, let me briefly review the history and architectural layout of Trafalgar Square.

Then, in 1999, a remarkable thing happened. The Royal Society of Arts came up with a bold way to solve the asymmetry problem: install on top of the fourth plinth a large contemporary sculpture that would infuse new life into 175-year-old Trafalgar Square. A commission was authorized to hold a competition every one or two years, in which about 100 artists from around the world are invited to make a proposal. The winning artist is selected on the basis of two criteria: (i) does he or she view Trafalgar Square through fresh eyes that encapsulate the collision of Trafalgar's two centuries of military heritage with the cutting edge of contemporary art, and (ii) will the artist's proposed sculpture provoke the imagination of the 40,000 tourists who visit Trafalgar Square each day?

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Figure 1: The fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square.

James O'Jenkins, Institute of Contemporary Art

Figure 2: Marc Quinn's sculpture for the fourth plinth, and the juxtaposition that inspired it.
Figure 3: Katharina Fritsch, Hahn/Cock. 2013.

Andy Rain, The Telegraph

Figure 4: Terry Winters, Clocks and Clouds/5. 2012.
Figure 5: Robert Gober, Untitled. 2008.

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  1. Joseph L. Goldstein is Chair of the Lasker Awards Jury.,

    Joseph L Goldstein

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  1. Joseph L Goldstein
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Correspondence to Joseph L Goldstein.

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Lasker Award recipients receive an honorarium, a citation highlighting their achievement and an inscribed statuette of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which is the Lasker Foundation's symbol of humankind's victory over disability, disease and death.

To read the formal remarks of speakers at the Lasker ceremony, as well as detailed information on this year's awardees, please refer to the Lasker website at http://www.laskerfoundation.org/.

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Goldstein, J. Juxtapositions in Trafalgar Square: tip-offs to creativity in art and science. Nat Med 19, 1222–1226 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3329

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