Make Art, Not War With Tanks

Scott Thoe says he has figured out how to stack 43,000 tanks on top of each other and make it look like a work of art.Seen from a distance, the aqua-blue model of Thoe's "Tanks for Peace" monument, on display in the State Duma last week, looked like a powerful jet of water. Close up, it turns out to be 4,000 model tanks glued together into a bridge -- some neatly stacked, others hanging like icicles or protruding like spines on a porcupine.In the unlikely event it is ever built, the bridge proposed by Thoe would be a staggering 400 meters high, almost the height of the Ostankino Tower, and 1.5 kilometers wide. His intention is to use 43,000 East and West European tanks, destined under a 1990 disarmament treaty to be scrapped, in a combination of art, disarmament and commemoration of the wars of the 20th Century. There is a slight obstacle -- the cost, estimated at $2.5 billion -- but Thoe, a Norwegian artist who spent several weeks in Moscow rallying support for his project, said he hoped that governments would fund it because the cost would be half the estimated price of scrapping the tanks.To help finance transportation of the tanks, private donors can also adopt a tank for $10,000, Thoe said. Thoe said he wanted "to make a sculpture that is symbolic of the ending of the Cold War, a symbol between East and West. A permanent bridge instead of a wall between the superpowers."Tanks are the best building blocks imaginable," he said. "They are the hardest steel ever produced. They won't even rust."The bridge of tanks would span the Oder River, the present border between Poland and Germany.Like many grandiose ideas, the bridge is far from being realized. As a single arch spanning 1.5 kilometers, it may well prove too great an engineering challenge to gravity."I'm leaving that to the experts in bridge building," Thoe said, citing support from the Paton Institute, in Kiev, which specializes in welding. Thoe said among the supporters of the project are Edward Teller, the designer of the hydrogen bomb, the late Willy Brandt, the former West German chancellor, and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.Valentin Tolstikh, the director of the Center for Cultural Issues at the Gorbachev Foundation, said: "Despite its crazy character, it's a realistic plan. It has a magical charisma."