A roundabout dog is a form of street installation

Street installation

Street installations are a growing trend within the "street art" movement. Whereas conventional street art/graffiti is done on surfaces/walls "street installations" use 3-D objects/space to enhance/interact/interfere with the urban environment . Like graffiti, it is non-permission based and once...

, that began occurring in the autumn of 2006, and continued for the rest of the year with sporadic occurrences since then. The phenomenon consists of anonymous people placing homemade dog

Dog

The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

 sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

s, typically made of wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

 (or sometimes plastic

Plastic

A plastic material is any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic solids used in the manufacture of industrial products. Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs...

, metal

Metal

A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

 or textile

Textile

A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

) in roundabouts (traffic circles). Occurrences were reported all over Sweden, and the phenomenon also spread to other countries, such as Spain after it was mentioned on Spanish television (PuntoDos). Swedish tabloid paper Expressen even placed one at Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly...

.

History

The roundabout dogs started appearing in Linköping

Linköping

Linköping is a city in southern middle Sweden, with 104 232 inhabitants in 2010. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality with 146 736 inhabitants and the capital of Östergötland County...

, Östergötland

Östergötland

Östergötland, English exonym: East Gothland, is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland, and the Baltic Sea. In older English literature, one might also encounter the Latinized version, Ostrogothia...

 (and were therefore originally called: de östgötska rondellhundarna), after a sculptured dog that was part of the official roundabout installation Cirkulation II (Circulation II) by sculptor Stina Opitz had been vandalised and later removed. The original dog had been made of concrete

Concrete

Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

, and Stina Opitz was planning to make a new version of it after the vandalism, when someone placed a homemade wooden dog on the roundabout. The dog was given a concrete dogbone by another anonymous artist. Soon after the media reported these developments, roundabout dogs started appearing in various places around the country.

Peter Nyberg (maker of the first 'Rondellhund') of Linköping told tabloid Expressen that his dogs were intended to "mock the state-employed artists, who get so much money to make sculptures that we can do just as well ourselves".
In some smaller towns where there were no roundabouts, dog sculptures were placed in ordinary intersections with traffic island

Traffic island

A traffic island is a solid or painted object in a road that channelises traffic. It can also be a narrow strip of island between roads that intersect at an acute angle. If the island uses road markings only, without raised kerbs or other physical obstructions, it is called a painted island...

s.

The Swedish artist Lars Vilks

Lars Vilks

Lars Endel Roger Vilks is a Swedish artist. He is best known for his drawings of Muhammed, prophet of Islam.- Personal background :...

 made a drawing depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad

Muhammad

Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 as a roundabout dog. This was published in a Swedish local newspaper in July 2007. It provoked accusations of blasphemy from some Muslim groups in the Middle East. (See Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy

Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy

The Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy began in July 2007 with a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks that depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog . Several art galleries in Sweden declined to show the drawings, citing security concerns and fear of violence...

.) The 2010 Stockholm bombings

2010 Stockholm bombings

The 2010 Stockholm bombings occurred on 11 December 2010 when two bombs exploded in central Stockholm, Sweden, killing the bomber and injuring two people. Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt and the Swedish Security Service described the bombings as acts of terrorism.Taimour Abdulwahab...

 are considered to be sparked partially because of the cartoon.

In April 2007 Bjorn Andersson started building roundabout dogs in his workshop south of Stockholm. His mission is to keep rondellhund at Philanthropic Street Art level and to give a moment of enjoyment to all people traveling by car. His dogs have traveled the world to places in the USA, in Australia and in the UK.

In 2009, similar dogs started appearing on some of the roundabouts in Hemel Hempstead

Hemel Hempstead

Hemel Hempstead is a town in Hertfordshire in the East of England, to the north west of London and part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2001 Census was 81,143 ....

, Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

.

External links

• News article from The Local
• Roundabout dog website
• Building Roundabout dog website
• Origin of the roundabout dog
• Official name: Östgotisk rondellhund
• 27 October 2006, Expressen
  Expressen
  Expressen is one of two nationwide evening tabloid newspapers in Sweden, the other being Aftonbladet. Expressen was founded in 1944; its symbol is a wasp and slogans "it stings" or "Expressen to your rescue", always on the reader's side....
  
  
• Roundabout dog in Örebro, 14 April 2006
• www.rondellhund.se
• "Dog fever in Uppland", 11 November 2006, Upsala Nya Tidning
• Roundabout dog in Visby
• Roundabout dog in Kappelshamn
• Roundabout dogs in Spanish media