England’s Headington Shark House loses its signature rooftop sculpture following landmark designation

A 25-foot-long fiberglass and steel shark sculpture embedded head-first into the roof of an otherwise-ordinary home in the eastern suburbs of Oxford, England, has been extracted by the home’s owner immediately after it was recognized by Oxford City Council as a heritage site for its “special contribution” to the community.

The removal of the famous fish, by far the most well-known work of public art in the close-knit suburb of Headington, comes as an act of protest by Magnus Hanson-Heine, whose late father, the American-born BBC radio host Bill Heine, commissioned the work in 1986 to relay an antiwar message inspired in part by the U.S. bombing of Libya earlier that year. Officially named Untitled 1986, the piece, created by sculptor John Buckley, was installed on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, and was meant by Heine to symbolize the unfathomable shock and horror of a bomb careening into a home. Only instead of a bomb, it’s a shark.

Explains the official Shark House website:

The sculpture has the meaning that you place on it, how it strikes you, and what it brings up. The sculpture can offer an example of what happens when we suddenly find something unexpected that breaks from the normal patterns of how we imagine things to be. It might give an insight into change and the fragile nature of things that otherwise feel safe and stable, allowing us to look again with fresh eyes. Or perhaps it’s just a bit of fun.

In addition to serving as a work of protest art decrying the bombing of Libya and nuclear warfare, the Headington Shark was also meant to act as a battle cry against censorship and the bureaucratic powers that be. Not surprisingly, the bureaucratic powers that be—namely, Oxford City Council—were none too pleased with the rubberneck-inducing sculpture after it was first covertly installed without permission, sparking an extended feud between Heine and the city’s planning department. The skirmish lasted through 1992 when Tony Baldry, a minister in the Department of the Environment, ultimately ruled that the shark could stay put. Heine passed away in 2019, and the home at 2 New High Street—along, of course, with the shark careening though its roof—was passed along to Hanson-Heine who currently rents it out as an Airbnb property.

Aside from the great white protruding from the roof, the property is a rather conventional one as far as Airbnb rentals go, described as a “large, stylish double fronted Victorian house” complete with four bedrooms, free Wifi, a private rear garden, and easy access to central Oxford.

As reported by the Guardian, Hanson-Heine strongly objected when learning of the city’s plans to declare the home as a protected landmark 30 years after the protracted battle to have the sculpture removed from its roof was finally settled in favor of his father.

“Using the planning apparatus to preserve a historical symbol of planning law defiance is absurd on the face of it,” Hanson-Heine, a quantum chemist, is reported as saying.

Still, officials went ahead with adding the home to the Oxford Heritage Asset Register following its public nomination along with 16 other sites, prompting Hanson-Heine to remove the massive sculpture from the roof during the dead of night.

“With the recent listing decision, it became clear that people had missed a large part of the message of the Shark House,” Hanson-Heine relayed to the Oxford Mail. “I just didn’t see the point of it anymore.”

“I might consider putting it back up later this month. I will have to see how I feel,” he said, adding: “I hope this doesn’t hurt the Airbnb.”

Although the intended antiwar message of the Headington Shark is a timeless one, Hanson-Heine noted in an interview that the sculpture holds a particular pertinency at this very moment in time as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to rage.