Artist, Richard Serra: The first model took three years to be built because we couldn't find a computer program, or a steel mill, that knew how to build these things. And the first one we tried to build, we broke a 40-foot plate two inches thick right in half. It sounded like lightning and I thought I'd bought the farm. I turned completely white.
Now, the technology has been developed to allow one to bend metal under heavy compression. And we use very large machines first used to build battleships in the Second World War. People really hadn't explored the potential for what steel could be in terms of its variabilities and elasticity. It's only recently been explored by a few people.