Giant ‘Easter Island’-Like Power Lines: So Cool You’ll Want to Take a Selfie With ’Em

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Power lines and electricity pylons — the looming metal braces that hold aloft industrial cords — are necessary things for our wired society, but they’re utilitarian, not beautiful. They’re certainly not art. We tend to ignore them when gazing out on a serene landscape or frown when we can’t angle our cameras around them to shoot a picturesque scene.

But all that may change when Iceland builds its first humanoid electricity pylons, 150-foot steel figurines that look like mythical male and female giants … and support power lines in their hands. 

The first one is now scheduled for construction in 2017. And we’re betting these power pylons will be the first you’ll be unable to turn your eyes (or lens) away from. Particularly when posed in a land with such otherworldly topography as Iceland, they’ll be unforgettably magical. 

The ethereal humanoids are the brainchild of designers Jin Choi and Thomas Shine, who operate the American design and architecture studio Choi+Shine. You may have seen photos of these uniquely designed structures before — the designers proposed the project, called “Land of the Giants,” to Iceland’s High-Voltage Electrical Pylon International Design Competition back in 2008. It ultimately didn’t win (and why, we have no idea!). But the design concept was so entrancing that it won a number of awards, including a Boston Society of Architects’ Unbuilt Architecture Award in 2010. 

So finally, the giants are ready to rise.

“Like the statues of Easter Island, it is envisioned that these modern caryatids will take on a quiet authority, belonging to their landscape yet serving the people, silently transporting electricity across all terrain, day and night, sunshine or snow,” the architects write on their website. “Seeing the pylon-figures will become an unforgettable experience, elevating the towers to something more than merely a functional design of necessity.”

We’ve never planned a vacation around power lines before, but hey, there’s a first time for everything. And after these guys are built, we’re definitely buying a ticket to Iceland.