Creating the Kelpies

I'm Andy Scott, I'm a sculptor specialising in public artworks.

I've been involved in a project for the past eight years that's become

just about an obsession for me.

I've sketched and drawn this project, I've lived and breathed it,

and modelled it, welded it for the last eight years

and now I'm going to see it the way I've never seen it before.

This fantastic.

These horses heads, the Kelpies,

started off as a drawing on my girlfriend's kitchen table.

It's just amazing to see them like this after looking at the plans

so many times for so many years.

Wow.

They stand 30m high

and took more than 300 tonnes of steel each to construct.

And they now stand guard over the eastern entrance

of the Forth and Clyde Canal between Falkirk and Grangemouth.

I don't know. I'm quite emotional, to be honest.

My dad died six years ago, he was a Falkirk man.

I just think that, you know, maybe he's up here looking at them

from here, you know. It's just amazing.

The Kelpies are my contribution to the Helix project, a massive

£43 million regeneration scheme here in Scotland's central belt.

But it all started a long time ago.

This is me seven years ago in the spring of 2007.

I was throwing myself into an exciting new project -

two vast pieces of public art to be known as the Kelpies.

And inspired by the heavy horses that once powered Scotland's canals.

In a sense, it's more to do with running my hands over them

than taking pictures, because it's committed to my memory

in a weird way and I can then go back with that

sort of weird knowledge of fusion of brain and hands.

And bash into these sculptures with big hammers

because I know I've got a few things wrong. But no, it's been fantastic.

It was the biggest commission I'd ever had

and would take me two years, or so I thought.

This is the Mackintosh Building of the Glasgow School of Art,

where I came in the 1980s.

I studied sculpture.

Back in those days, the first year course was a general study year

where you tried a bit little bit of everything, and during

the course of that year the idea was you would pick up enough knowledge

or you would get a feeling for one subject in particular.

And once I tried sculpture for the first time, that was it,

I was hooked.

I suppose this building really had quite a lot to do with it

because you couldn't help but be influenced by the craftsmanship

and the real sort of artisanship that is so evident in this building.

The ironwork around it, the woodwork, was just fantastic,

it was a real eye-opener.

I sold out my degree show, if I remember rightly.

Which was quite unusual back then.

It really gave me a sort of bolster of my confidence

that you could actually make a living out of selling sculpture.

To put it in historical context,

the famous Glasgow Boys of Stephen Campbell and Adrian Wisniewski

were a couple of years before me in the art school,

who were fantastically successful figurative painters.

But as I recall, they hadn't been, or weren't many,

successful figurative sculptors.

And most of the sculpture at that time

was very much in the abstract realm of art.

I stuck to my guns and then the fact that I sold out

really did give me some fire in my belly in terms of

there was potential to make a living from this.

And by sticking to what I suppose at the time was looked at as

a traditional or conservative way of making sculpture.

But it didn't bother me two hoots.

The sculpture that started it off in terms of the big outdoor stuff

was the heavy horse at the M8 motorway.

I love the idea of the heavy horse as a kind of emblem for the city.

And for me, it was about the reinvention of the city of Glasgow

from its once industrial history of the shipyards,

which were all gone and the locomotive works were shut down.

And the city was really inventing itself as the Garden Festival,

the Year of Architecture and Design, the Year of Culture,

and for me, the horse became emblematic of that reinvention.

And it's something I try and do in nearly all my sculptures,

is put a deeper level of narrative through them

and if the very least that the public see is something that

enhances their everyday life, then I've done my job.

So the heavy horse is the one that really got me going.

And after that, there was no looking back.

This is the early stages of the pair of maquettes.

This fellow here with his head down

and this one here with the head raised.

And as I say, these are the working models,

and I'm just trying out the different forms of the horse.

And a system for cladding them.

And to give you some idea of scale, this is one 10th scale,

so this one is going to be 26m high,

and this fellow is going to be 29m high,

which will make them among the biggest sculptures in Britain.

The theme is the kelpie.

The kelpie is a mythological Scottish sea horse,

and for me there was this whole history of horses in terms

of the agriculture and of course the canals.

Horses were used to draw the barges along the canal systems.

If you can imagine, around the Falkirk area,

all the foundries around the River Carron,

there would have been heavy Clydesdales and heavy horses

dragging materials between the various factories.

Of course, all the agriculture and farmland along the way of the canal

would all have been ploughed and worked with these big horses.

When I went over to see the big horses in Pollok Park,

Glasgow City Council as you know owns a few big Clydesdales.

So I took some fantastic photographs, but in the process,

actually running my hands over the necks of these big creatures,

I realised I'd got the first take of the anatomy slightly wonky.

So there's a fine line between abstraction and downright wrong.

So unfortunately I was on the side of wrong.

So I decided to remodel.

As you can see from the pile of scrap steel in the corner,

I had to do some surgery.

All I've done here is drawn out the form of the horse.

This one obviously head down. This fellow here with head up.

In reality, when the boat displacement lock system works,

this horse is going to dip forwards by 5m.

And the other fellow will raise backwards by 5m,

creating a 10m separation.

The principle is that as they move inside their own basin of water,

they'll displace enough water into the central lock to lift

boats up and then they can pass on into the Forth and Clyde Canal.

So if you like, it's a new gateway from the eastern edge

of the River Carron and the Forth into the low-level canal system.

It's going to be a very... extremely involved process

to make them into reality.

Really we are talking about engineering or construction,

fabrication on the scale of shipbuilding here.

Just beginning to feel my way into it.

I've got until the end of... the beginning of May to get this

part of the job finished. So it's full steam ahead,

in amongst all the other projects I'm doing, so busy times.

It all seemed to be going so well.

So much so that Scottish Canals held a photo call to unveil the plans.

I'll be getting some suntan off this.

There's no money for them yet,

so we're crossing our fingers for a Lottery grant.

I'm calling this one Carnera.

It was the biggest horse that ever lived in Britain,

and he lived in Falkirk.

He was named after the heavyweight champion boxer in 1932,

an Italian monster guy. It's too good, isn't it?

I've not come up with a name for this one yet.

I've got two weeks get these things finished, so time is of the essence.

But thereafter, these are simply working models

and providing funding falls into place, then I anticipate probably

maybe two to two and a half years

to see them come to fruition in full-scale.

I need to get the my finger out actually. Time you guys were away!

The Kelpie maquettes, one-tenth of the size of the final sculptures,

are going to be on public display.

So they are on their way to be galvanised.

It's quite emotional, actually. Quite strange.

I think because these have been such hard work.

After me saying I can't wait to see the back of them, now I'm,

"Look after my horses. Be careful."

I still use a good guy, he always looks after my stuff.

A lot of admiring glances on the motorway to Cumbernauld.

It's a wee bit different for him, you know.

They are plunged into molten zinc.

When they come out, they really look like mythical creatures.

They have the sheen that the full-size Kelpies will have

and are protected from the elements.

The galvanised maquettes are now on display at the Falkirk Wheel.

And so am I.

I've committed to it and it's a very, very heartfelt commitment

from my perspective. And it's been really, really hard work

to do them and I can see one of the nose just poking over there,

taunting me from above.

But once I got into it, it was a very enjoyable experience.

I've made a list here, I won't go on too long

but this gives you some idea of what was involved.

954m of flat bar, 240m of round bar,

two 10 millimetre thick steel plates,

48m of 150 by 80 angle,

six bottles of ferromax welding gas,

two bottles of oxygen, one bottle of acetylene,

eight rolls of welding wire, 9,000 - approximately -

cuts on the guillotine.

A BA honours in postgraduate sculpture.

LAUGHTER

20 years professional practice, 186 cups of tea.

32 packets of Jaffa cakes and about 45 bottles of Irn-Bru.

And that's gone into making these things.

APPLAUSE

At this stage in the proceedings,

it's beginning to dawn on me that this is a waiting game.

Public art often means public money,

and there's no way that the Kelpies, or the Helix Project,

can go ahead without serious finance from the Big Lottery Fund.

The latest I heard just this morning was November, mid November,

that we should hear.

They are obviously taking some considerable time to go over it.

That's a good thing because I'd hate to think

they'd make a rushed decision.

But it's very frustrating for me to have put so much effort

and energy into meeting deadlines they set,

only to have their return deadline stretch out seemingly for ever.

It's difficult, a hard thing to get your head round.

But as I said, I've just got to force myself to get on with other jobs, not worry about them too much.

They'll do what they do and hopefully we'll hear before Christmas.

You put your heart and soul and a huge amount of education

and experience into that.

How would the rejection feel?

Rejection? Never. Well, it would be hard. I mean...

I suppose in your darker moments you obviously have to think about that.

It would be a sore one, it would be very difficult.

But you can only look at these things...

It's a much bigger project than just the Helix. Sorry, just the Kelpies.

It's the Helix, it's a bigger environmental project.

And I'm not fully aware of all the very varied

and detailed criteria by which it is being assessed.

I can only be sure that I did my best with the Kelpies.

And if it doesn't work out, such is life,

move on and do other projects.

And hide from the embarrassment for a couple of months.

I no longer have to worry about embarrassment.

Six months later, at Falkirk Stadium, my lottery number came up.

And I'm absolutely delighted to announce that the Helix Project,

led by Falkirk Council and its partners, has been successful.

APPLAUSE

I think that the Kelpies

and the rest of the project have the potential to be as iconic

as something like the Angel of the North for Falkirk and Grangemouth.

-Hiya.

-We got a reference from last year and...

Well done, well done.

Such a thrill. It's absolutely brilliant.

Finally, a result.

Time to get a welding.

Of course, I wasn't just sitting twiddling my thumbs

when I was waiting for the Lottery announcement.

Rise is a recent commission for Glasgow Harbour

which is being installed on South Street.

She's over 6m high and weighs nearly two tonnes,

so she's a big girl.

But tiny compared to the Kelpies.

-See, you can move these no bother!

-HE LAUGHS

'We need to build public interest and support for the Kelpies,

'so we hold a media event at the studio and invite

'Glasgow City Council's Clydesdale horses along to take some of the attention away from me.'

'The Kelpies are newsworthy.

'But pretty soon, in the autumn of that year,

'journalists have a very different story to report.'

The latest official prediction that Britain will be in recession by the end of the year.

The plan to rescue the British banks could

cost £400 billion of taxpayers money.

It's official - Britain IS in recession

and it's deeper than predicted.

The British economy is officially in recession.

The recession of 2008 nearly killed off the Kelpies.

It didn't, but it set the project back years.

But in these dark times I had something else and something

very wonderful on my mind, I married my girlfriend Hanneke.

She's a Dutch architect I met in Amsterdam.

We were set up by a friend, a mutual friend.

And basically Andrew came over to Amsterdam after an e-mail exchange.

And, um, yeah, it was a blind date. And then I moved here in 2007.

We got married in 2008, so it was a year after.

The Kelpies, er, started when I was still lived in Amsterdam

and I remember Andrew telling me about it and thinking,

this was quite an unusual project, I didn't know whether to believe it

was going to happen or not because it sounded such a fantastic opportunity.

And I remember him sitting on the kitchen table,

at the kitchen table, drawing the first sketches for the Kelpies.

So that's where the original design started.

Andrew protects themselves at the beginning of a project

because it might not happen, so he is not too excited in the beginning.

But I am more positive person

and I always believe that there is a way that you can make it

happen yourself, so I'm trying to make him think positively.

At the moment we're on the top of the Finnieston Crane in Glasgow,

down on the Clydeside here, towering 100-and-something feet above the river.

And, for me, this is just the most fantastic icon of the city of Glasgow and all that it...

or once stood for.

I wrote about it recently in a magazine article

as being my favourite building in Scotland.

I think I've said... "He's punching the skyline"

and it really is quite a magnificent thing in the landscape of the city.

I'm delighted to say that he's a listed monument, so they will not be able to obscure the sightlines.

It is quite an amazing experience being up on top of this big structure, you know?

It's always been a kind of shadow or a presence in my life.

I was born and bred in Glasgow and it's just fantastic.

You know, if you cut me, the Clyde would come out, I think.

It's just incredible.

I was born and first lived over in Springburn, up there.

Then we moved over to East Pollokshields over there.

Then I went to art school just over there,

I moved to the West End over there.

I got married in there in July and I live quite close to there,

so it's just incredible to be able to see the whole of my life.

I hope it doesn't turn out to be one of those moments where the whole of my life is passing before my eyes!

But it really is incredibly poignant.

The ingenuity and the craftsmanship and the engineering, you know -

everything that I really feel are important to me as an artist,

living and working in the city of Glasgow,

are kind of summed up in this one big structure.

I think there are obvious parallels there between, you know,

as I said, the engineering and the skill and craftsmanship.

Although the Kelpies, of course,

will be arguably more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but that's a matter of debate.

I suppose, in one way I'd like to think I captured

the imagination side of things, and the engineers

and the project managers and all the other teams that are involved

in the Kelpies, are going to make the project what it will be.

I think it's a fantastic summary of the whole thing, up here on top of the crane.

'The engineers are here.

'They are from Atkins who will turn my models into engineering

'designs and then will oversee the building of the full-size Kelpies.'

Well, there's a debate at the moment whether they both move or

only one of them moves to perform the function of the boat lift.

The point being that one of them will be fantastic to have

access inside it, you can actually use for basically climbing up

and having a look out, you can see all the way up to Stirling Castle and the Ochil hills.

It would be fantastic.

It was one of the original concepts we had way back at the beginning.

The trouble is with the safety requirements.

If you start moving something like that with people inside it,

the safety risk assessment...

The whole thing becomes an engineering nightmare.

But the real reason I think that it's better off having something

that you can move in it, you said it today,

if you go to the Empire State building.

No, if you go into the Statue of Liberty,

everybody goes there and looks around.

What everybody actually wants to do is go inside it and have a look inside.

And therefore, I think going inside these is actually important.

I think it would be absolutely fantastic.

In the first report that I did a way back, there were

images of the inside of the Statue of Liberty.

And I did it basically to say, if Gustave Eiffel and Bartholdi

could do something that size back then,

then surely we can do it nowadays, you know

given the technology we've got over what they had back then.

I've started work on a second, more detailed set of maquettes.

These ones, as you know, were done hastily and speculatively.

So I've now got a chance to revisit the anatomy

and I suppose makes them perfect and make them more towards

the actual vision that I have for them when they're full-scale.

So among the many changes, for example,

on this version here you will see there are quite a few

of the bars, if you like, run horizontally as well as vertically.

So what I'm doing on the second version is I'm arranging them

all to run in a vertical pattern, as you can see.

And what that's going to do is, when they are built full-scale, that will

give the... accentuate the idea of movement, of the things rising from the water.

So I'm really developing the aesthetic and the visual style of the steel arrangement.

This one, they work perfectly in order to get the project under way.

But this one is where we can really start to refine the sculptures

for the scaling up process and just to get them spot on.

This extraordinary piece of kit is electronically scanning my maquettes

to create a three-dimensional computer model of them.

This is going to be vital when it comes to scaling up every single piece of metal that

I've cut and welded to build something ten times their size.

They never taught me fluid mechanics at art school.

But we have to be sure that strong winds funnelling between my giant Kelpies

aren't going to be dangerous to visitors.

Tests are being done at a specialist laboratory in Teddington, in London.

I expect it to be quite windy because of the...

The Kelpies itself...

is quite significant to the site.

And the site itself is quite flat.

I think occasionally you see between the horse head and the body,

the flow is accelerating,

you know, through that channel, around it.

We are looking at moving the Kelpies further apart to try

and reduce the effect they are having on each other.

The lock area, which is kind of in the centre between the Kelpies

might be potentially reduced.

Because in the winter we could look at restricting access to the Kelpies

in high wind periods, but we still want the lock to be operational.

It's now February 2009 and I've been at this for years.

But this is progress.

The maquettes are going to the site where the Kelpies will be built.

This is where the Forth and Clyde Canal meets the River Carron which flows into the Forth estuary.

They are here to make a firm declaration of intent.

'The plans have changed.

'And the position of the Kelpies has been moved.

'It really is beginning to dawn on me now that

'I'm not just an artist working on my own,

'but part of an enormous team with a variety of expertise.'

'It's been a long and complicated project to this point.

'It's been a lot of hard work.

'My own role in it has changed a wee bit, you know, since the last...

'Since the second set of maquettes were made,

'I've taken a step back we from that.

'In the meantime, the engineers, as you have seen,

'have been doing an incredible amount of work behind the scenes.'

So it is rolling on slowly, there was a lot of political

and bureaucratic hurdles to get through, but they have been done.

It's bound to go with the project of this size,

it's just the nature of it, but it's been particularly

frustrating for me because my passion for it, if you like.

It's all part of it, and we're getting there.

I think from this point onwards, things will really start to move.

I think there is a common will, a recognition of...

Of the importance of what we are trying to achieve, and I can really

see things moving on from this point onwards at quite a rate.

'Ever the optimist, Andy Scott, ever the optimist.'

Thanks for coming, guys. Great meeting. Cheers. See you all later.

Right, thanks very much. Cheers. See you later.

The white on its own is just fantastic, isn't it?

Move the light over a wee bit and we'll just push the head that way

and then you have got the same thing.

All we're missing then, Reg, is that we can't work with the two of them together. But that is life.

-Oh, it's a nice lighting affect on lion rampant there, isn't it?

-HE CHUCKLE

Just been a case of trying out the different colours

and sequences and also how we're going to use it in conjunction

with a floodlighting to the outside.

So, it's kind of our combination of the external and internal lighting working together

to make sure it doesn't look too Las Vegas and over the top

but still quite theatrical and dramatic.

And I think we are getting a better feel for it now.

The kelpies now, these ones here,

will be getting taken away for the summer season of the Falkirk wheel

as a PR device and so the public can get a sense of what is happening.

I think this is the last chance we will have at this level,

but obviously we can do a lot more with computer modelling

and take it from there, but that's over to the experts really.

For me it was about the feel of it and it worked very well.

OK. I've seen enough.

'The engineers at Atkins have moved on from my hand welded maquettes.

'They'll be able to provide the fabrication company who will

'actually build the Kelpies with detailed computer drawn,

'three-dimensional plans of every single one of the thousands of components.'

That's amazing.

That really starts to give you a feel of how it's all going to all be, doesn't it?

Oh, it's going to be good, isn't it?

You can zoom back out again, John. I was wondering how much of the...

If you go straight on at the canal as if you're going straight in,

if you know what I am mean, if you rotate it slightly...

Then straighten up. You can just see the outside of the head there.

So it's just enough to give you a sense of something happening, you know?

Rather than having it just looking straight ahead, it would

have been quite dead from that side.

But the twist, the angle that we've got it at just gives it that bit of life.

-(Just to complicate it.)

-Just to complicate things for you!

You know, it gives it that bit of a flourish.

And likewise with the head up one, because of the angle it's at,

and they kind of lean in towards each other, it'll really create a kind of entrance...thing.

Vibe, thing, happening, man.

Magic! Excellent.

But early in the New Year of 2011, the engineering challenges of the Kelpies and changes to the canal

led to a radical change of plan.

Originally intended as a boat lift system on the canal,

but due to some very complex and fluctuating engineering challenges,

the volume of water that was involved and various other issues,

the movement of the boat lift system was actually done away with

and I am pleased to say that such was the passion for the idea of the sculptures,

that the sculptures themselves have become the main focal point and have been retained.

And what has actually happened has been very, very interesting.

The focus has since shifted and we've managed to evolve the project

to become much more of an environmental and architectural project.

Then this came along, a blistering attack in The Sun that

rubbished my zany artworks as a waste of public cash.

'I was still reeling from that Sun article.

'But Felicity from Atkins brought me a present that really cheered me up.

'It doesn't look like much, but it is hugely significant.

'It's a single test panel.

'A prototype of just one of more than 900 that will make up the Kelpies' skin.'

-Do you know they've had two enquiries for weddings inside them?

-Have they? That's exciting!

How good is that?

'Well, since we last filmed, I think

'it's been probably been about a year maybe even a wee bit longer, actually.

'But it's been a slow process, but I have to say there has been

'a lot going on behind-the-scenes, as it were.

'There's been a lot of engineering problem-solving and some

'major issues to do with the Helix Park itself, have been resolved.

'And everything's really beginning to pick up a pace now.

'Just recently we had a meeting with all the parties

'involved in the Kelpies and the Helix, and it was very positive.

So I really do, I have to say, it's really beginning to pick up the pace now.

What we have here is a sample panel,

one small section, which as Felicity describes is about 25 feet up,

on the left-hand side of the head-down Kelpie.

They chose that section

because it actually has some relatively tight curves,

which would be quite difficult to actually achieve

in full fabrication. And then what they tried to do

was actually to make sure that the pull,

that the tension and the forces that were required to attach,

would actually work. So a very exciting step forward

and at long last we're really beginning to get there.

So really it was a major triumph. It doesn't look like much,

but it was a really important step in the process.

Gives everybody the confidence

that they can do them just as they thought, and, er,

gives me the confidence that I wasn't mad after all

and it really will happen. So it's really exciting.

It was a year later, in May 2012,

before we were able to break the best news I'd heard in six years.

My kelpie maquettes and the Clydesdale horses they were based on

were brought together at the studio for the official announcement

that a major engineering company had signed the contract

to turn my dreams into giant realities.

Six years, nearly seven years

since I first started working on this project,

and since I did the first drawing on my now-wife's kitchen table

in Holland. And finally we're about to commence the fabrication.

It's been a very long and difficult process.

These things are always complicated with procurement processes,

but we've finally, SH Structures were selected

and I'm delighted with that,

and I'm looking forward to working with them over the coming few months

to see them built full-scale.

Slide your hand down there.

There were two things

that captured us. One was the form that they were.

It was something immediately recognisable.

They weren't an abstract form of art,

they were something you could instantly see what it was.

And the other thing was we very rapidly picked up on

Andy's own enthusiasm for the scheme.

He's clearly passionate about this.

It's quite a responsibility for us to take on this project

because at the end of the day Andy's used to doing the work on his own

and we're very much sort of taking his baby off him

and doing the work ourselves.

But he is going to be actively involved, I can assure you of that.

I'm delighted, you know?

It's been a very difficult project. It's been...

There have been a few moments when I've actually

doubted my own ability to stick with it, to be blunt.

It's been very, very difficult.

But, yeah, I'm delighted. It's really good.

Seeing both the sets of maquettes here today,

seeing the big horses back again,

it kind of makes all the last six years of agony

condense into a few moments. And, no, I'm looking forward.

The next year will be what it's all about. This is when the fun starts.

There are stocks of steel here that I've only ever dreamed of.

Here, they're going to turn coils of steel into tubes

that will be used to build the Kelpies' skeletons.

We receive it hot and coiled

from our mill in South Wales,

and we uncoil it and then form it into tubes,

which are then cut to length for the project.

Once they're formed, they're then heat-treated

through a walking beam furnace to 900 degrees

so that it improves their mechanical properties.

Been making 323mm-diameter pipes,

10mm thick.

They are Celsius hot-finished.

So far the tubes are straight,

and there isn't a straight line anywhere in my Kelpie designs.

We've been doing some coal-rolling, some tubular sections, some pipe,

also some hot bending of the same type of section on a larger scale,

and some bending of plate

for the mane and the ears and the eyes of the sculpture.

You take a piece of tube

or a pipe, and you roll it through a set of rollers

backwards and forwards gradually to bring the radius in to the item.

The advantage is you can achieve complicated bends.

You can do reverse bends, elliptical bends, achieve the complex shapes

required by a sculpture of this nature.

The hot-bending process is a slightly different process

that's designed to bend larger pipes and hollow sections

that wouldn't withstand the cold-bending process,

and the tube is heated to about 800 degrees Centigrade,

and bent in very small sections throughout its entire length

to achieve a very good quality bend.

We get involved in projects in different countries.

We've just done a job in Azerbaijan which I'll probably never get to see,

whereas this project is probably one of the biggest we've done,

and been involved with, and it'll be interesting to be able to

go up there and actually look at the work that we've achieved.

This is SH Structures's fabrication yard,

and these are the Kelpies' steel bones.

They'll take the weight

and eventually will be clad with a steel skin.

It's great here - grinding,

welding,

and a vast Meccano set.

For an artist, I've attended more than my fair share of meetings.

But on a project this size and complexity, they're a necessity.

The actual structural analysis side of the design

is now I'd say 90% there.

In terms of modelling, the mane...

and the ears and eyes are all complete.

-Amazing, isn't it?

-It's mind-boggling!

-It's mind-boggling.

-What have we done?

You see it on paper, and you look at it on the screens,

and you kind of get it, and then you look at the complexity of that...

-That's tricky stuff, isn't it? It's really...

-It's not easy.

No matter how many times you look at the drawings and the models

and you visualise it and you see it on computer screens,

when you actually see the steelwork coming together,

not only do you get a sense of the scale,

but you get a sense of the skill

that's involved in making these pieces.

And some of the welds and processes

that are going on in there are absolutely amazing.

You can see these guys are very, very good.

It does finally feel real.

Over the past few years, there's been many times

where I thought this thing was never actually going to happen,

and, as you know, it's been fairly fraught from time to time,

but...absolutely fantastic.

I'm delighted that I came down,

and these guys have been so hospitable today,

but it's really, really good to see it coming together.

I'm sure there'll be a few more ups and downs along the way,

but very exciting.

You know, I've seen...

I've seen as many things like this in galleries without the...!

-You know what I mean? Leave it as it is, you win the Turner!

-Yeah!

The role of public art is to enhance the everyday experience,

to elevate our understanding and appreciation of life.

Back at the art school in the '80s,

there really wasn't such a thing as public art as we now know it.

I mean, if you'd said back then that I would have pieces

in places like Drumchapel or Easterhouse

or, for that matter, London or Sydney, it would...

I don't know, I would have bitten your hand off at half the chance,

you know, but we've got them there.

A lot of my portfolio was based in the early years

on working really closely with communities

and building relationships with them

and making pieces that they wanted to have in their area,

and that's a very humbling experience.

I'm back in Yorkshire, where the fabricators

have begun putting together parts of the jigsaw.

Oh, what a head rush.

HE CHUCKLES

Every time I come down here, I'm like a wee kid in a sweet shop.

I'm like, it's really happening!

I think we've probably been going about six months now

on fabrication of the Head Down,

and we've got a similar length of time to do the Head Up.

But then we hit site and there's about another six months on site,

so it's a very long process

to complete what is a very, very complicated job.

This is something special, and chatting to the guys,

it's something that they are looking forward

to seeing going up on site, and we've been fortunate enough

to be able to generate jobs with this project,

including some young apprentices,

and they're particularly keen on working on this,

because they know that in years to come, they'll be able

to go and visit Scotland with their families and their friends and say,

"I actually worked on this," and that clearly makes a difference to them.

There are some points at which I have to say

this is outwith my understanding or even zone of influence.

But I'm absolutely certain that we're dealing with

one of the best teams we could possibly have mustered

to make these things a reality,

and the results so far have been fantastic.

And I'll be honest. Part of it's been a learning thing for me.

This kind of scale, the shift, the experiences, is very different.

I do... As you know, most of my work is handmade,

and it's something I'm very proud of.

But this, at this scale,

I'm allowing it that sort of bit of separation, difficult as it is.

The chaps told us that they'd assembled this

to let us have a bit of a look at it and to check all the sizes

and make sure everything fitted,

and it's just been a fantastic chance to come down

and get a sense of the scale and how everything's going to work.

It breathtaking when you walk in.

And when we came in at first, the noise in here's phenomenal,

with all the guys working,

so it's amazing just to see it now in this quiet,

and it really does give you a sense of what we've got

and what we're dealing with - it's phenomenal.

The first Kelpie components are arriving in Falkirk from Yorkshire.

Someone - not me - has told the press,

and the photographers are out in force.

It really is a significant day,

although it's not an easy one for the photographers.

The components on the lorries could be bits of anything,

from a nuclear power station to a football stadium.

Fortunately, Bill Moore is there to explain the significance.

It's a milestone, in that...

..the sort of design stage,

the kind of planning stage, takes... seems to take such a long time,

and now we're actually into the build phase.

So, it kind of starts, almost, the countdown

towards the completion of the Kelpies when, in a few months' time,

we'll have these magnificent 30m tall structures

sort of kind of dominating the landscape.

Meanwhile, just a mile away, the foundations are being laid.

I've designed sculptures 30m high,

and they're going to need foundations

more than 30m deep to support them.

We've just finished piling both foundations,

we've broken the piles down,

and reinforcement cages are currently being fixed,

the Head Down foundation being the one that's furthest advanced,

and the steelwork erection programme to commence first on it as well.

It's certainly one of the more complex jobs

I've ever been involved in - a lot of service diversions,

a lot of different stakeholders, work on the motorway,

traffic management, deep excavations,

poor ground conditions, and drainage work.

It's a bit of everything there from a civil engineering perspective.

So, we're probably two to three weeks away

from a concrete pour at the moment,

and the pour itself will be done with two concrete pumps on the day.

They'll supply something in the order

of 50 to 60 cubic metres an hour during the shift.

It's snowing, but it's not too cold

to pour the concrete the Kelpies will be anchored to.

Trucks trundle back and forth,

supplying the pumps that spew the concrete into the foundations.

Meanwhile, in Sheffield - where else? -

huge rolls of steel are being uncoiled and sliced into sections.

The machine behind me is a laser cutter,

and we've just profiled out the individual parts

that will make up the outside shell of the Kelpies.

Seven long years after I first sketched the Kelpies,

construction actually begins.

Got a build process of 20-week programme, from today,

right up through to commissioning of the lighting, er, installation,

so that'll be complete throughout.

Each head, we're looking at about 75 days per head

to actually build each one.

Site-wise, it's quite a short period of time

to actually put the structures together

and put them up. It's a one-off project, really.

There's nothing ever been built like this before, certainly in the UK,

possibly in the world, so, yeah, very proud of the project.

Spookily, the maquettes arrive.

I assume they're for a press conference tomorrow

and not just to remind the construction team

what they're building is supposed to look like.

Today is an opportunity for press and stakeholders

to check out progress.

This is day two of the build period, and as you can see,

the guys have achieved quite a lot in a short space of time.

I think we'll see the excitement in this project really starting

to build up every day, every week now,

as we see the structures come to their full completion

over the next 75 days and I think, really,

that's going to create a lot of excitement in this area,

as they start to see the structures rise from the ground.

What we want them to be is an attraction

for people to come here and visit,

a colossus, really, for entering the Scottish canal system

and something that the local people will be so proud of.

The process has been long and I don't know

if I should use the word tortuous,

but it's been a very difficult process for a number of reasons

and it's been extremely challenging at times

and extremely rewarding at times, I have to say.

It's amazing the depth and scale of the project

once you start to get into these things.

It's really a very, very complex process,

as you'll have seen from some of the engineering aspects of it.

Next, the eyes and ears.

And that'll really, obviously,

create a sense of a real step forward in the project,

just to give it that sense of identity, almost,

that those features will take.

As you can see from some of the landscaping around us,

they've been doing a lot of the cladding

of the stainless steel panels at ground level

to make those lifts a bit easier

and obviously to expedite the process.

From where I stand, it seems to have gone together very well.

I think more of the interesting and dramatic events happened

earlier on in the decision-making and the design process.

But so far, so good.

Touch wood, if I had any about me, but it seems to have gone very well

and hopefully that'll continue until the end.

They're having to work long and hard to keep on schedule.

It's eight o'clock, round about eight,

and I think these boys are going to be here for a wee while yet.

The skill it takes to rig these things for lifting is unbelievable.

The structure that you see underneath the mouth there has been

specially built to hold it so that it doesn't damage it on the way up.

It's just an incredibly complex piece of work that they're doing

and it's a really exciting stage, so hopefully they'll manage it tonight.

These guys were here until midnight last night.

It was a beautiful evening yesterday.

It was clear skies, full moon, absolutely gorgeous.

Made conditions an awful lot easier than today.

It's been absolutely lashing down all day, torrential rain,

and they're still here.

We're in autumn now.

The day is too short and the evening is just too dark

and the Kelpie's nose job has to be abandoned.

A few days later, the construction team makes another attempt

at getting the head-up nose connected.

We've finally got the end of the nose section connected there

with the open mouth of the head-up Kelpie.

I say "we" - I've just been standing watching. These guys are fantastic.

It's an absolute achievement, it's incredible.

They had been using soft slings before

and there was a danger that they might actually be cut

by the stainless steel plates so they had to use steel cables

rather than slings and also the actual lifting points -

they're lifting it from three different points,

but they had to balance it because the head's on a tilt.

As well as being rearing up,

it's actually on a tilt to one side,

which meant it's a very complicated angle to hang it by

and these guys have managed to do all that

and get it hanging just right and now, for the next three hours,

they'll be up there doing all the bolted connections

to actually put it on and tighten everything up.

Ah, you know, you wouldn't know to look at it,

but the skill that it takes to sling something like that

and lift it is phenomenal and the team here are just amazing.

It's absolutely brilliant

and it suddenly brings this one to life too,

the way that the features did on the head-down Kelpie.

It's incredible, I'm absolutely delighted.

My heart was in my mouth there.

One of those few occasions in the whole project

where I was actually very nervous, and it just looks amazing.

My hopes for the project

are that they become a recognised landmark for Scotland

and I can't tell you how much blood, sweat and tears I've poured into it.

I'd love them to become well-known and recognised internationally

as well as in Scotland and across the UK.

It's often difficult up here,

as a professional artist working on bigger projects,

to get any recognition.

The London art world controls the world, almost,

and you can do what you like up here,

but to get any recognition for your works

or the projects you're involved in is very, very difficult

and I'm hoping that these pieces will actually be able to do that

and give Scotland something very, very magnificent

that the whole population can be proud of.

I used to joke that it'd be quite nice...

You know, my job'll be done when these are the lair of a villain

in a James Bond movie.

So I don't know. Who knows what the future holds?

The media's back.

The horses, Baron and Duke, are back, and I'm back.

Today we are doing the official topping-out ceremony.

It's a somewhat akin to a skyscraper being finished off

and it's really a bit of a media extravaganza.

One of the government ministers is coming along to...

I don't think we're going to smash a bottle off them or anything

but we're going to launch them, as it were, officially.

Although, as you can see, the site works have a long way to go.

It'll be next April by the time they're finished.

So, no, it's a good day, actually.

It feels like a landmark point

and it really does, sort of, finish those big fellas off.

It's great to see these Kelpies finally unveiled.

We've been watching them being built over the last six months.

The community's been watching them.

To actually see them completed is fab.

Obviously, there's still bits of the park still to be done

but it's absolutely fantastic to see them and they're absolutely amazing

and the biggest equine sculptures in the world.

That really puts Falkirk on the map.

I think they're magnificent. I think they're breathtaking.

I'm sure every superlative

in the book will have been used about them.

I think they'll become Scotland's most-photographed icon

before very long and deservedly so cos they're absolutely wonderful.

I've brought my wee Kelpies to the Big Apple.

A chance to introduce them to a whole new continent.

We just were walking on the other side and saw the flat truck come by

with these beautiful, er, horse heads.

And as my wife's an artist, we looked at not only the beauty of them

but how they were manufactured.

And, you know, the small squares. The fact you could see through them,

yet you had the illusion of a solid structure as well,

kind of piqued our interest so I'd love to go see the real ones.

Thank you, everybody.

I'm just enjoying a lovely sunny morning,

basking in the warm afterglow

of installing the Kelpies here.

It went really smoothly last night. It took two hours.

It would probably have been quicker if we could get the crane right.

But we did it and they look fantastic and, as you can see,

the response has been amazing. Everybody's really happy with it.

They'll be here for a month.

It's just another, sort of, icing on the cake for the whole adventure.

They almost act as ambassadors for the full-size Kelpies

and it's been amazing, the response.

New York's the art, cultural capital of the world, really,

and to have them here in this location is phenomenal.

I've got to be honest - for me, as well as the Kelpies, you know?

Raises my profile, hopefully.

Might lead on to some new commissions for me.

But they just do the business. It's just fantastic.

I'm really, really thrilled. It's great.

The overwhelming reaction is how it makes everybody smile

and how wonderful they are, and they are just in awe of them.

They are a wonderful artwork and piece of sculpture

and such a tribute to Scotland.

I came down from the Upper East Side,

which is two or three miles up,

just to come down and see the Kelpies here today.

I'd read about, on the American Scottish Foundation website,

that they had...

The actual ones in Falkirk, Scotland, are 100 feet high.

And that, to me, is amazing.

Way back in the beginning of the project,

nearly eight years ago now,

the ideas of comparing the Kelpies and that they...

The idea that we might be able to, somehow,

match the Statue of Liberty's iconic stature -

it was one of the main motivations, or certainly a driving force.

Very, very different types of sculpture, of course.

Nevertheless, this one really has become symbolic of New York

and probably America. And to think that the Kelpies -

you know, in my wildest moments - might actually have that

kind of implication and significance for Scotland would be phenomenal.

It's really amazing to stand here with this lady in the distance,

thinking of what she's become for this city and country.

And I can only hope that as the years go on,

and the Kelpies grow in the popularity and recognition that they've got,

that that might actually happen for the sculptures. It would be an amazingly...

Well, it'd just be an incredible thing if we could make that happen. It really would be amazing.

Time will tell.

That's it. Job done.