Between the bronze lions, fountains and Nelson’s Column, Trafalgar Square gained a temporary 11-metre-tall resident this July. Universal Pictures placed a Trojan Horse in central London, built according to the blueprints used in the production of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
The structure, weighing more than four tonnes, stood on a sand-covered base, while an exhibition of photographs from the film and a walkway lined with flaming torches turned the surrounding space into an extension of the film’s world. The installation was unveiled one day after the London world premiere, where the same horse dominated the blue carpet despite the attendance of almost the entire cast.
Behind the spectacular sight was a considerably less glamorous logistical undertaking. The project was developed over six weeks, with 45 designers, engineers, welders and set designers involved in its design, construction and assembly. A team of 34 people spent 288 working hours on the structure itself, using steel, polystyrene, resin, fibreglass and metal foil.
The horse was transported to Leicester Square in four sections and on a separate base, distributed across three trucks. Six people spent approximately nine hours assembling it, while its dismantling and preparation for the next location took almost the same amount of time.
Following its one-day appearance in Trafalgar Square, the installation was moved outside the Westfield London shopping centre, where it remained for four days. The London horse was part of a broader promotion for the film, alongside the original prop displayed at Universal Studios CityWalk and another replica that travelled through Venice in California, Texas and Miami during June before the premiere in New York.
Instead of conventional premiere decoration, Universal turned the central symbol of Homer’s story into a physical medium that could function on a red carpet, in a city square and outside a shopping centre. The campaign brought the scale of Nolan’s production out of the film frame and directly into public space.
Still, in the battle for attention, four tonnes of steel, resin and fibreglass faced an unexpected competitor. Alongside the enormous London prop, one of the film’s most sought-after promotional items was a much smaller and more plastic version of the Trojan Horse, a popcorn bucket shaped around the same motif.
