2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics cauldron

The 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics cauldron was used for the Olympic flame during the Summer Olympics and Paralympics of London 2012. The cauldron was designed by Thomas Heatherwick and described as "one of the best-kept secrets of the opening ceremony": until it was lit during the Olympics ceremony, neither its design and location, nor who would light it, had been revealed. For the Olympics it consisted of 204 individual 'petals', and for the Paralympics 164, one for each competing nation.

British designer Thomas Heatherwick was chosen by Danny Boyle to design the cauldron for the 2012 London Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games (the same design would serve both). Heatherwick was a highly regarded designer, responsible for the first prize-winning "Seed Cathedral" at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, and the New Routemaster bus introduced in London in February 2012; Boyle was an admirer of his B of the Bang sculpture in Manchester, saying of it 'I loved it so much; it's a tragedy they took it down in 2009 ... These public sculptures breathe life into you.'

"But we had to fight to have it on the floor of the stadium. The organisers had already decided that the torch was going to be on the roof, which is where they always are. ... Why would you do that? ... I was really clear that wasn't going to happen. I hate that. Those traditional cauldrons have no humanity about them at all; they're just vast, bombastic pieces that weight fifty tons. We wanted something that had some humanity and warmth about it rather than shock and awe. It's a key moment in the opening ceremony, and it's what all the other events are leading up to. It's really what you're there to do: to light the cauldron."

The brief was that the cauldron should be something that connected all the nations, with the idea of them each bringing a constituent part of it, and also have a story or narrative. It was to be of a human scale, and to be placed among the people in the stadium rather than towering over it. It was also to be transient, like the coming-together of nations during each Games.

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