Professor Tally Bean
Needle Tower
Kenneth Snelson's sculptures have done more to popularize the concept of tensegrity than anyone's. His large scale constructs show how compression members can provide rigidity while remaining separate, not touching one another, held in stasis only by means of tensed wires. By means of discontinuous compression and continuous tension, Snelson's multi-story towers and large scale amorphous exoskeletons of wire and steel, give dramatic, visible expression to the idea that tension and compression are the eternally complementary elements in any structure, and that great economy in materials may be achieved through strategies which rely on tension primarily, compression secondarily
Needle Tower
Kenneth Snelson's sculptures have done more to popularize the concept of tensegrity than anyone's. His large scale constructs show how compression members can provide rigidity while remaining separate, not touching one another, held in stasis only by means of tensed wires. By means of discontinuous compression and continuous tension, Snelson's multi-story towers and large scale amorphous exoskeletons of wire and steel, give dramatic, visible expression to the idea that tension and compression are the eternally complementary elements in any structure, and that great economy in materials may be achieved through strategies which rely on tension primarily, compression secondarily