The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) on Thursday threw open its “Seven Wonders of the World” park to the public at the Rajiv Gandhi Smriti Van near Sarai Kale Khan Interstate Bus Terminal. Spread across seven acres, the park show cases grand replicas of the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, Great Pyramid of Giza, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Christ the Redeemer, and Rome’s Colosseum – all made of scrap material.

Men behind the masterpiece

The park was built in 180 days and over a 100 artists, welders, and helpers, and five artists — Rakesh Rana, Anuj Poddar, Pijush Kanti Patra, Sandip Pisalkar and Prem Kumar Vaishya — from the College of Fine Arts, University of Baroda were engaged to complete it.

“We had never taken up such a unique and large- scale project before this although we had sculpted works made of waste in various cities across India,” said Rakesh Rana, 37, who hailed from Vadodara.

Creating beauty out of scrap

Anuj Poddar, a key artist and the SDMC’s consultant on the project, said that he had presented the idea of sculpting with scrap three years ago to the municipal body in Vadodara. The idea was a hit and was replicated in other cities too.

In January 2018, Poddar along with other artists created 30 sculptures from waste material and those were displayed at various locations in Dwarka and south Delhi.

“SDMC commissioner (Puneet Goel) approached us to build ‘Seven Wonders of the World’. The idea was to use a unique public space, using scrap material,” he said, adding that ‘waste to art’ technique was a novel way to recycle the scrap material. “Such initiatives should be taken in every smart city so that waste material is reused.”

An intricate art

Sandip Pisalkar said the project was quite tricky, and involved technical complexities such as moulding scrap material into a particular shape and carrying out fine carving.

Pijush Kanti Patra said that exact replication of wonders of the world was very challenging and it required a lot of “precision”, hard work and concentration. “Before this, we had only made normal sculptures and this was a big test for us. We had to match minute details of the real architecture which we were replicating. No such work was done before, so we had no template,” he added.

“Besides, weather was a challenge too. We started the project in August 2018, which was a rainy season. Many days were wasted because of rain,” Pisalkar (39), a resident of Vadodara said.

A monumental challenge

The artists say that of all the replicas, the Taj Mahal was most difficult as it required a lot of minute, intricate carvings. “Recreating floral work required fine craftsmanship. A lot of people have seen the Taj Mahal, so we had to be very accurate, especially while creating the dome,” Poddar said.

He added that Leaning Tower of Pisa was another challenge as it required special type of scraps. “We used sewer pipe filled with concrete, discarded advertisement unipole”.

First Published: Feb 22, 2019 11:55 IST