Tees Valley Giants

Coordinates: 54°34′49″N 1°13′18″W / 54.5803°N 1.2216°W / 54.5803; -1.2216 The Tees Valley Giants was intended as a £15 million series of five art installations by sculptor Anish Kapoor and structural designer Cecil Balmond. The artwork was planned to be created in the towns of Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Stockton on Tees in the Tees Valley area of England. The project was launched in July 2008 by Tees Valley Regeneration. If completed, the project would become the world's biggest public art project.

The structures

Five structures were planned: however only one, Temenos, has been unveiled.

Temenos

Temenos was the first sculpture for the Tees Valley Giants project to be announced. It is approximately 110 m long and 50 m high and cost £2.7 million. The steel structure consists of a pole, a circular ring and an oval ring, all held together by steel wire.

The structure is situated in the Middlehaven area of Middlesbrough, close to where the Transporter bridge is located; construction work started in autumn 2008, was completed by spring 2010, and officially presented to the people of Middlesbrough on June 10, 2010. The name 'Temenos' comes from the Ancient Greek (τέμενος < τέμνω, temno, to cut) term for land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct.

Tees Valley

The Tees Valley is an urbanised city region in the North East of England nestled between North Yorkshire and County Durham and consisting of the following five unitary authorities: Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees, the latter four previously formed the administrative county of Cleveland between 1974 and 1996.

The Tees Valley area covers the lower, flatter (and much more urban) area of the valley of the River Tees. Tees Valley Enterprise Zone is an enterprise zone which encourages industrial development in 12 sites around the region, with a thirteenth site planned.

The five councils have recently announced plans to establish a Tees Valley Combined Authority after a majority of the public voted for the move. Sixty five per cent of more than 1,900 responses received during a seven-week long public consultation were in favour of a combined authority.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Tees Valley at current basic prices published (pp.240–253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.