The Marble Arch Mound or Marble Arch Hill was a temporary, artificial hill located next to

Marble Arch The Marble Arch is a 19th-century white marble-faced triumphal arch in London, England. The structure was designed by John Nash in 1827 as the state entrance to the cour d'honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near the site of what is today th ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, England. It had a viewing platform on the summit and an events space inside. The hill opened to the public on 26 July 2021, with an entrance fee, but shortly afterwards it was briefly closed after complaints from the first visitors. It re-opened in August with entry free of charge. It remained open to the public until 9 January 2022, and was subsequently dismantled.

Description

The hill was located in the north-east corner of Hyde Park, close to Marble Arch, at the western end of London's

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...

. The high hill was built from scaffolding covered with

sedum ''Sedum'' is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Crassulaceae, members of which are commonly known as stonecrops. The genus has been described as containing up to 600 species, subsequently reduced to 400–500. They are leaf succule ...

turf and a number of trees, with 130 steps up (or a lift) to a viewing platform at the top and an events space inside. Visitors could only walk on specified walkways and metal steps, and it had a capacity of 1,000 visitors per day, with a limit of 25 at a time. At the time of the planning application, a total of 200,000 visitors were expected. It also had a shop and cafe, with an exhibition titled "Lightfield" by W1 Curates and Anthony James. The project was commissioned by

Westminster City Council Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in London. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2022. Full council meetings ...

, hoping to boost

domestic tourism Domestic tourism is tourism involving residents of one country traveling only within that country. Such a vacation is known as a domestic vacation (British: domestic holiday or holiday at home). For large countries, such as Russia, Brazil, Canada, ...

; to help speed up the return of shoppers to Oxford Street after the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

lockdown ended; and to offer views across central London, including

Battersea Power Station Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames in Nine Elms, Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It was built by the London Power Company (LPC) to the design of ...

and

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is a financial area of London, England, located in the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The Greater London Authority defines it as part of London's central business district, alongside Central London. Alongside ...

The mound was designed by the Rotterdam-based architectural firm

MVRDV MVRDV is a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based architecture and urban design practice founded in 1993, with additional offices in Berlin, New York, Paris, and Shanghai. It is currently regarded as one of the world's finest architecture firms. MVRDV is ...

. MVRDV's original plan was to cover the Marble Arch itself, but this was rejected by conservation experts who were concerned that six months of darkness might weaken the mortar joints and so a corner was removed from the hill to avoid covering the monument. Shrinking the hill also required a change from covering the hill with soil, to using the lighter sedum turf.

Cost

The hill was announced in February 2021 as part of a £150 million development initiative by Westminster City Council. Planning permission was sought in the same month, and construction began in May. The original forecast cost was £3.3 million; by August 2021 the total cost, including construction, operation and removal, had risen to £6 million. On 13 August 2021, the deputy leader of Westminster City Council and project lead

Melvyn Caplan Melvyn Caplan is a British Conservative politician. He has been a councillor for Little Venice since 1990. He was the leader of Westminster City Council from 1995 to 2000. Until his resignation in 2021, he was the Deputy Leader of the council an ...

resigned in the wake of the cost increase. Council leader Rachel Robathan described the almost doubling in cost as "totally unacceptable" and a review was launched to "understand what went wrong and ensure it never happens again". The review was published on 19 October 2021 and found that the failures in the project's management were "both avoidable and particularly devastating."

Opening

The attraction opened to the public on 26 July 2021. The entrance fee ranged between £4.50 and £8.00. It was described by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' as " ookingparched and patchy, more like an ensemble of ill-matched carpet tiles than a greensward. The trees were looking skinnier and less luxurious than the computer-generated promotional images had suggested." It was compared to the hill from the children's show ''

Teletubbies ''Teletubbies'' is a British children's television series created by Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport for the BBC. The programme focuses on four differently coloured characters known as the Teletubbies, named after the television screens on t ...

'', and landscapes from computer games such as ''

The Sims ''The Sims'' is a series of life simulation video games developed by Maxis and Video game publisher, published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and is one of the List of best-selling video game fran ...

'', ''

Super Mario 64 ''Super Mario 64'' is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan and North America in 1996 and PAL regions in 1997. It is the first ''Super Mario'' game to feature 3D gameplay, combini ...

'' and ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus Persson, Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java (programming language), Java programming language, the ...

''. Some visitors complained that the hill did not match the marketing photos, with one visitor describing it as "the worst thing I’ve ever done in London", and commenting that it is not possible to view the park from the hill due to trees in the way — but it was possible to view a rubble pile. Days after opening, and following several complaints from disappointed visitors, Westminster City Council acknowledged that advertised elements of the Mound were "not yet ready for visitors", and closed ticket booking until August so that "teething problems" could be resolved, and plants could bed in and grow. MVRDV said that "working with plants is unpredictable, especially in challenging weather conditions". The first visitors to the hill were offered refunds and a free return ticket. The hill reopened on 9 August, with an announcement that entry would be free of charge for the rest of the month. In September, free entry was extended for the full duration of the hill's presence at Marble Arch. The mound drew around 250,000 visitors in total, according to Westminster Council.

Dismantling

The mound remained open to the public until 9 January 2022, after which time a four-month dismantling process began at a cost of £660,000. It was intended that the trees would be distributed around Westminster and to local schools, and that other greenery would be recycled.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite news , title=Mound zero: what is Marble Arch's new landmark all about? , url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jul/23/marble-arch-hill-mound-london-oxford-street , access-date=27 July 2021 , work=

, date=23 July 2021 , language=en {{Cite web, url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jul/24/why-the-marble-arch-mound-is-a-slippery-slope-to-nowhere, title=Why the Marble Arch Mound is a slippery slope to nowhere, date=24 July 2021, website=

{{Cite web, url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/marble-arch-2m-pounds-mound-open-summer-b941964.html, title=Marble Arch's £2m mound is mounting up for summer, first=Jonathan, last=Prynn, date=24 June 2021, website=

Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...

{{cite news , last1=Burford , first1=Rachael , title=Marble Arch Mound branded London's 'worst attraction' , url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/visitors-marble-arch-mound-westminster-council-refunds-london-worst-attraction-b947846.html , access-date=27 July 2021 , work=

, date=27 July 2021 , language=en {{cite news , title=Man-made £2m 'Marble Arch Mound' opens to public at £8 a visit , url=https://uk.news.yahoo.com/visitors-hyde-park-man-made-mountain-tickets-143507474.html , access-date=27 July 2021 , work=

Yahoo! News Yahoo News (stylized as Yahoo! News) is a news website that originated as an internet-based news aggregator by Yahoo. The site was created by Yahoo software engineer Brad Clawsie in August 1996. Articles originally came from news services such ...

{{cite news, url=https://www.indy100.com/news/marble-arch-mound-opening-reaction-b1891273, title=Hyped £2m Marble Arch Mound opens to the public but the public are unimpressed, work=

Indy100 ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

, date=27 July 2021, accessdate=27 July 2021 {{cite news , author=Julia Buckley , title=Marble Arch Mound: London's newest attraction is a heap of earth , url=https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/london-mound-marble-arch/index.html , access-date=30 July 2021 , work=CNN , language=en {{cite web , title=The Marble Arch Mound – Oxford Street District , url=https://osd.london/project/marble-arch-mound/ , access-date=30 July 2021 {{cite web , title=Marble Arch Mound – Oxford Street District , url=https://themarblearchmound.com/ , access-date=30 July 2021 {{cite news , title=Marble Arch Mound has a "serious message" says MVRDV in defence of attraction , url=https://www.dezeen.com/2021/07/30/marble-arch-mound-mvrdv-defence/ , access-date=30 July 2021 , work=Dezeen , date=30 July 2021 , language=en {{cite news , last1=Waywell , first1=Chris , title=Work has started on the big artificial hill at Marble Arch , url=https://www.timeout.com/london/news/work-has-started-on-the-big-artificial-hill-at-marble-arch-051321 , date=13 May 2021 , work=Time Out London {{cite news , title=Marble Arch ‘mound’ plan to lure visitors back to West End with 25m-high hill set to provide sweeping views , url=https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newslondon/marble-arch-mound-plan-to-lure-visitors-back-to-west-end-with-25m-high-hill-set-to-provide-sweeping-views/ar-BB1dIk3U , access-date=30 July 2021 , work=www.msn.com , date=16 February 2021 {{cite news , last1=Burford , first1=Rachael , title=Marble Arch Mound to open as free attraction after ‘spectacular flop’ , url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/marble-arch-mound-free-tickets-labour-inquiry-b949268.html , access-date=8 August 2021 , work=www.standard.co.uk , date=6 August 2021 , language=en {{cite news , title=Marble Arch Mound: Deputy leader resigns amid spiralling costs , url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-58197626 , access-date=13 August 2021 , work=BBC News , date=13 August 2021 {{cite news , last1=Edmonds , first1=Lizzie , title=Marble Arch Mound: Westminister City Council deputy resigns after cost blows out to £6m , url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/marble-arch-mound-westminster-city-council-deputy-melvyn-caplan-resigns-b950461.html , access-date=13 August 2021 , work=Evening Standard , date=13 August 2021 {{cite news , last1=Phillips , first1=Jacob , title=Marble Arch Mound finally torn down six months after £6 million flop opened , url=https://www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/marble-arch-mound-finally-torn-22780784 , access-date=18 January 2022 , work=MyLondon , date=18 January 2022 , language=en 2021 in London Artificial hills Oxford Street Tourist attractions in the City of Westminster Buildings and structures completed in 2021 Buildings and structures demolished in 2022 History of the City of Westminster 2021 establishments in England 2022 disestablishments in England Defunct tourist attractions in London Mounds