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Just taking out a signature piece of public art for this is symbolic of Lansdowne Park as a whole. We spent a lot of money to redevelop it and we keep allowing its gradual crappification because it turns out that polishing crown jewels is difficult and expensive. Painted lines for traffic in supposedly pedestrian-oriented areas. A “water plaza” that got crummier with each iteration. Relatively nice metal bollards replaced with cheap plastic ones because people kept driving into them.

Now tens of thousands of people will be at Lansdowne for one of the biggest events it’ll ever host and let’s just clear this junk out of the way.

The stands will stay up for an outdoor hockey game in December, said the city’s general manager of parks, Dan Chenier, in an email on Tuesday relayed through the city’s communications staff. The sculpture is to go back up in the spring.

Photo by Jean Levac / Postmedia Network

Moving Surfaces was never designed to be taken out, Anholt said. Everybody knew TD Place would get temporary bleachers for very big events and they and the nearby sculpture would have to fit together.

“As part of our design process, the issue of the Grey Cup temporary stands came up,” she said. “The architects did a full detailed model proving the artwork could stay in position and the stands could be built around the artwork. It was settled.”

Installing the sculpture was a huge job. The vertical pieces that rise from the ground went in one by one and the arched portion was installed in two massive pieces, using welded-on lifting brackets removed after each piece was in place.