EastLink completes renovation of two more public artworks

Hotel by Callum Morton

Located next to EastLink south of Greens Rd, Hotel is one of Australia's most famous public artworks.

At 20 metres high, Hotel is a large-scale model of a high-rise hotel. Positioned out of context, with no surrounding structures, the artwork appears out of place, as if belonging to another time and place. Hotel is effectively a giant folly.

While Hotel was completely repainted by September 2022, there were major faults with the lighting control system, which meant that the artwork's windows were not lighting up at night.

The faulty system has now been completely replaced with a modern lighting control system, and the artwork's windows are again lighting up at night using the same sequence as originally programmed for the artwork.

Reverent Numbers by Jos Van Hulsen

Reverent Numbers is located adjacent to the EastLink Trail south of High Street Rd.

To create the artwork, Van Hulsen transformed discarded distance counters from the Victorian Railways into towers that are memorials to statistics of both distance and casualties. In a culture bombarded with numbers every day, Reverent Numbers seeks to provide a connection with these human tragedies by embedding the towers with mirrors. On closer inspection, the viewer can catch a glimpse of himself or herself, a friend or stranger, who are all a possible statistic.

Well, that was the theory behind the artwork!

In practice, vandals smashed each of the glass mirrors, destroying the relationship between the viewer and the artwork.

The broken glass mirrors have now been replaced by much more robust stainless steel mirrors that were cut to size in the EastLink workshop, from large industrial mirror products.

The rust on the old railway distance counters has always been an integral part of this artwork, and won't be removed.