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Vault (The Yellow Peril)

Australia

Vault (The Yellow Peril)

Vault (popularly known as The Yellow Peril) is a public sculpture located in Southbank, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The work of sculptor Ron Robertson-Swann, Vault is an abstract, minimalist sculpture built of large thick flat polygonal sheets of prefabricated steel, assembled in a way that sugg

ests movement. It is painted yellow. Presently located outside the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, it is a key work in Melbourne's public art collection, and of considerable historical importance to the city. Vault has been controversial throughout its existence. Commissioned by the Melbourne City Council after winning a competition in May 1978, for the newly built Melbourne City Square, the sculpture was not even built before it began to attract criticism from certain media and council factions, on the grounds that its modern form was felt to be unsympathetic to the location. The cost of $70,000 was also felt to be excessive. The sculpture had no official name for over two years, and acquired a number of nicknames during this time. Robertson-Swann himself called it The Thing. The steelworkers who constructed it called it Steelhenge. Newspapers gave it the derogatory nickname...

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