The Singing Ringing Tree: A Futuristic Art Sculpture

Appearing like an artist’s imaginative rendering on the blank canvas of nature, the “Singing Ringing Tree” is a futuristic art sculpture in England. Set in the Pennine mountain range in Lancashire, overlooking Burnley, the project is one of four sculptures that are part of the Panopticons project of the East Lancashire Environmental Arts Network (ELEAN), and funded by organisations including the Northwest Regional Development Agency and the Lancashire Economic Partnership.

Not only do the steel pipes that make up the sculpture look futuristic and like the result of a berserk brush on an artists’ canvas, they also produce sound in the wind. The sculpture is therefore named after the East German children’s film of 1957, “The Singing Ringing Tree.” The 3m tall sculpture made from galvanised steel is designed by the London-based firm Tonkin Liu’s architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu with assistance from Jane Wernick Associates. The sound produced covers many octaves and is a penetrating and mildly discordant choral noise. The variation in the noise is a result of the interaction of the wind with the structure.

Designing a musical sculpture posed quite a few challenges as it was the first of its kind attempted by Tonkin Liu. The site for which Tonkin Liu submitted the proposal offers a panoramic view and, in extreme cases, experiences winds blowing at speeds reaching 160km/hr. This sparked in the designers a desire to create something striking and musical. Costing £60,000 to build, the “Singing Ringing Tree” was awarded the National Award of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 2007. This futuristic art sculpture, looking fresh out the blank canvas of an artist’s imagination, is a perfect symbol of Lancashire’s renaissance, as the Panopticons project was intended to be.