Scenographic installation · McArthurGlen Castel Romano · Piazza del Foro Romano · 2017

A T-rex in the Forum.

For the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet in Castel Romano we built the monumental Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton that today presides over Piazza del Foro Romano — the most photographed landmark in the centre.

Story

One act

The landmark
of an outlet.

The McArthurGlen Designer Outlet in Castel Romano, on via Pontina 25 km from Rome, is one of the largest outlets in Italy: more than 150 stores of international brands inside an open-air complex designed as a stylised Roman village — squares, fountains, arches, three-storey buildings in brick and pale travertine. The main hub is called «Piazza del Foro Romano».

For that piazza — the obligatory crossing point of every visitor — the outlet commissions us a monumental Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton: a sculpture that has to act as a visual landmark visible from every corner of the village, ready to be photographed on a phone and sent to the children of visiting families.

The skeleton is sculpted starting from the anatomical study of the T-rex — saurian reptile of the late Cretaceous, about 12 metres long, four metres high at the hips, massive skull with forward-facing orbits and tight rows of teeth. The pose chosen is dynamic: tail and skull lifted, load-bearing legs, ribs arrayed like fossils just extracted from a dig.

Built in expanded polystyrene carved by hand, stiffened in fibreglass, finished with washes in brown-anthracite bone tones to simulate the fossil patinated by time. The suspension of the aerial section is engineered with stainless steel tie-rods anchored to a vertical structural pole at the centre of the piazza — static calculation to resist the Pontine winds and the wind tunnels between the outlet's buildings.

The skull in the foreground. Frontal view of the T-rex in Piazza del Foro Romano

The same T-rex seen along its full length: complete skeleton from the cervical vertebrae down to the tail, dynamic pose above the structural pole, white stone base surrounded by hedges and flowerbeds, in the background the outlet's brick and travertine buildings with Desigual and Geox store signage — **Full length.** The entire skeleton — vertebrae, ribs, tail

Behind the scenes

Anatomy,
statics, patina.

Reproducing the skeleton of a credible T-rex 12 metres long takes three different crafts: the anatomical study of the fossil, the static calculation for the aerial suspension, the chromatic patina that makes the bone look real.

The anatomy

The study starts from the real fossils: "Sue" at the Field Museum in Chicago, "Stan" (now at the Natural History Museum in Abu Dhabi), the reconstructed specimens at MUSE in Trento and the Museo Paleontologico in Bologna. The proportions of the skull, the curve of the spine, the angle of the pelvis, the number of ribs and caudal vertebrae must be credible at a glance.

The aerial suspension

The skeleton is partially suspended: only the legs rest on the base, the rest is held up by a vertical structural pole in stainless steel at the centre of the piazza, with tie-rods supporting tail and head. The static calculation accounts for the Pontine winds (the Castel Romano area is windswept) and the wind-tunnel effect between the outlet's buildings.

The fossil patina

The real fossil is not white: it is brown-anthracite, patinated by time, with lighter shades in spots where the calcium comes through more strongly. The finish is done with acrylic washes applied in successive layers over the polystyrene, with a material effect that gives back the "fossil stone" rather than plastic.

~12 m

the length of the skeleton — proportions of an adult late-Cretaceous T-rex

25 km

the distance from Castel Romano to Rome along via Pontina

150+

international brands present in the Designer Outlet stores

Second life

The T-rex is still there,
in the piazza.

The skeleton is permanently installed in Piazza del Foro Romano. It has become the meeting point of the centre: "see you at the T-rex" is a common phrase among the outlet's visitors, especially families with children. It is also one of the most photographed objects at Castel Romano on social media, with thousands of shots every year under the outlet's hashtag.

Our technique of the monumental fossil applied here has entered the standard repertoire of the workshop. The cross-disciplinary skills of anatomical study, scenographic statics and chromatic patina also serve adjacent works — the Maleficent dragon at the Disney event, the Carthageland King Kong, the rhinoceros of Palazzo Rhinoceros for the Fondazione Alda Fendi.

Outlet scenography is still a niche commercial genre in Italy, but it is growing: open-air shopping centres are starting to invest in scenographic signature pieces to set themselves apart from the competition. McArthurGlen Castel Romano was one of the first to risk a piece on this scale.

Tech sheet

All production data

Type: Permanent monumental sculpture for an open-air shopping centre · visual landmark of the piazza
Client: McArthurGlen Designer Outlet · Castel Romano · Rome · via Pontina
Location: Piazza del Foro Romano — the central piazza of the outlet, main crossing point
Production period: 2017 — photos from our archive dated 22 April 2017
Subject: Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton · saurian reptile of the late Cretaceous · about 12 m long
Pose: Dynamic · skull and tail lifted · load-bearing legs on the base · ribs arrayed like fossils just extracted
Techniques: High-density expanded polystyrene carved by hand · layered fibreglass for stiffening · finish with acrylic washes in brown-anthracite bone tones for fossil effect · white stone base surrounded by flowerbeds
Suspension: Vertical structural pole in stainless steel at the centre · tie-rods supporting tail and skull · static calculation for the Pontine winds and the wind-tunnel effect between the buildings
Anatomical references: Public fossil specimens: "Sue" at the Field Museum in Chicago, "Stan" (now at the Natural History Museum in Abu Dhabi), MUSE in Trento, Museo Paleontologico in Bologna
Our role: Complete fabrication of the sculpture — carving, stiffening, polychrome finish in washes, static calculation of the suspension, transport on site and assembly in the piazza
Second life: Permanent installation · meeting point "see you at the T-rex" for outlet visitors · one of the most photographed objects on the centre's social channels