A sculpture two-thirds the height of Liberty Hall by internationally renowned artist Antony Gormley has been commissioned by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
Costing an estimated €1.6 million, the sculpture is likely to be located in the river Liffey close to the Seán O'Casey footbridge, pending planning permission.
While the final form of the work is yet to be decided, the artist has been inspired by the research of Trinity College Prof Denis Weaire who, with Prof Robert Phelan, "unlocked the geometries of the bubble matrix", or "double helix", to "radically redescribe the human form as an open structure".
The London-born artist is perhaps most famous for his Angel of the North, a massive sculpture that put Newcastle on the international artistic map. He wants to have the Dublin sculpture "arising from the water as a drawing in space".
Mr Gormley said: "The work will allude to the human body as a dynamic interconnected matrix evoking the collective body, which is in itself in dynamic relation to the movement of people in the street and across the new Seán O'Casey Bridge."
The sculpture is expected to use previously unused construction techniques to build the 48-metre-high structure and carry its weight.
According to the authority, the work will be "a signpost for the realignment of Dublin's epicentre eastwards". In other words, they want to move the "city centre" to the docklands, as a symbol of the development and the large numbers of people moving in to the area. The sculpture "will read as a drawing against the changing light of the sky, within an area of Dublin that has low-rise buildings on both sides of the river".
Mr Gormley has evolved this proposal from Field, a vast installation of 35,000 sculptures last seen in Dublin in 1993 at his show in Imma, where tiny clay objects looked up at the viewer.
This dynamic has been reversed in this proposal for Dublin, where the pedestrians on the street will be "Lilliputians" relative to the sculpture.
The docklands authority will apply for planning permission at the end of the year and, if successful, construction will begin in 2008 and take about eight months to complete.
Mr Gormley's latest exhibition, Antony Gormley: Blind Light, was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary and is on display at the Hayward Gallery in London until August 19th.
The artist was selected from a shortlist of six after an international competition for the landmark public art project for the docklands.
