Tim Hales / AP

Designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, the ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture is made up of 63 percent recycled steel and incorporates the five Olympic rings.

LONDON -- Red, twisted and 72 feet higher than the Statue of Liberty, the ArcelorMittal Orbit now looms over the Olympic Park as the tallest sculpture in Great Britain.

Designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor and architect Cecil Balmond, tabloid newspapers have branded it "the Eye-ful Tower," "the Godzilla of public art" and worse. Others say it looks like a roller coaster gone badly awry.

Even London's normally garrulous Mayor Boris Johnson struggles to describe the $36-million structure. "It is very absorbing to look at," he says. "It has got that weird enigmatic tubey Fallopian quality about it if I'm being totally blunt."

'A 45-second conversation'
The idea for what has been called a "deconstructed Eiffel Tower" was formulated in 2009, when Johnson and steel magnate Laksmi Mittal discussed creating something dramatic for the Olympics while attending the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.  

"This was conceived in a 45-second conversation in a cloakroom!" Johnson recalled on Friday, as officials announced the 2,000-ton tower had been completed.

Mittal contributed $31 million to the project, with the rest of the cost being covered by public funds. However, the sculpture has proved controversial at a time when the U.K. is grappling with massive spending cuts.

Kapoor says he expected to evoke a mixture of responses to his latest work. "When you make a new addition of this scale to the London skyline, its bound to be controversial, and there are those who love it and those who don’t and we'll see what time does," he said.

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Kapoor noted that Paris's iconic Eiffel Tower was considered "the most tremendously ugly object" by many when it was first built. 

Belmond, who described the looping structure as "a curve in space," said he thought people would be won over by it.

Visitors will be able to pay $24 to go up the 35-story structure in an elevator when it opens during the Olympic Games in July.

Olympic housing crunch: London landlords evict tenants to gouge tourists

On a clear day, views from its observation deck extend for 20 miles across London and the green hills beyond.

Slideshow: When the Olympics is your neighbor

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A diverse community in East London will welcome the world to Britain for the 2012 Olympic Games. Meet residents and hear how they feel about having a huge, world stage in their backyard.

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The tower will be at the heart of a new 560-acre park, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, that will include a lush river valley, biking trails and a tree-lined promenade. 

Brits revel in gloom ahead of Games, but don't believe the gripe

After the Games, Johnson says he expects millions will visit the Orbit, and that it will be become a landmark. 

He believes other Londoners will come to love it, too.

"I think so," he said, then paused. "In the end."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated at 10:50 a.m. ET: The United States has canceled a proposed food aid deal with North Korea following over its attempt to launch a long-range rocket taking a satellite into orbit.

Senior administration officials told NBC News the deal with Pyongyang is off after the rocket was fired. It failed shortly after launch and landed in the sea off the South Korea coast.

"We are not going forward with an agreement to provide them with any assistance," White House National Security Council spokesman Ben Rhodes told reporters traveling with President Barack Obama to Florida.

He added that the U.S. and its allies will "take additional steps" if there are more "provocative actions."

Earlier, the G-8 group of countries on Friday condemned North Korea, and a leading Republican said even a failed test would help North Korea develop "technology capable of delivering a nuclear weapon that can threaten American cities tomorrow."

A U.S. official told NBC News that the launch was the fourth time the North Koreans had tried to launch this kind of missile, saying it should serve as a "real wake-up call" for the country's new regime.

In a statement, foreign ministers of the G-8 -- made up of the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, the U.K., Germany, France and Italy -- raised the possibility of action by the United Nations.

"We, the G-8 Foreign Ministers, condemn the launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which is a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1695, 1718, and 1874," the statement said.

Reuters graphic showing the rocket's path

"Sharing the view that the launch undermines regional peace and stability, we call on the DPRK to abstain from further launches using ballistic missile technology or other actions which aggravate the situation on the Korean Peninsula," it added.

It said they were "ready to consider, with others, taking measures responding to all activities of the DPRK that violate U.N. Security Council Resolutions."

They said they might also call for what it described an "appropriate response" by the U.N. Security Council.

How will North Korea deal with failure?

The foreign ministers urged North Korea to abandon "all its nuclear weapons and its existing nuclear and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner," end its uranium enrichment activities, and take "concrete and irreversible steps toward denuclearization."

A U.S. official told NBC News that the missile had failed shortly after launch, before the news was confirmed by North Korea itself.

"The North Korean missile failed shortly after launch," the official said. "Think about it:  This is the fourth failure to launch this missile as it was designed, and should serve as a real wake-up call for the new government."

North Korea rocket breaks up after much-touted launch

"Their efforts to draw attention to the program certainly seem to have backfired in this case," the official added. "Everyone will be watching closely to see how the government handles this first real test."

U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl said in a statement that the missile launch was "yet another provocative action undertaken by the regime in Pyongyang." 

"The rocket that the North Koreans attempted to launch employs technology that is relatively identical to that of a ballistic missile, including similar guidance and propulsion systems," he said. "Even a failed launch can provide useful information for North Korea's development of technology capable of delivering a nuclear weapon that can threaten American cities tomorrow."
 
He said the North Korean regime had "once again" demonstrated "complete disregard for international sanctions and its proclivity for worthless commitments."

Kyl said the Obama administration should "abandon its naive negotiations with North Korea (and Iran), and instead focus on fully funding missile defenses that can protect the United States from ballistic missile threats."

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that the official North Korean news agency, KCNA, confirmed the rocket had failed to enter orbit about four hours after the launch.

KCNA said that the scientists and engineers were working to find out the cause of failure.

In Japan, there was relief at the failure, but local media were asking why it took the government 40 minutes to confirm the launch to the Japanese public.

Japan's prime minister Yoshihiko Noda urged Pyongyang to abide by all United Nations resolutions and demanded that it takes concrete steps in resolving the various outstanding issues including their nuclear and missile development, as well as addressing the highly charged issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North korean agents.

Japan currently has various sanctions in place against North Korea, among them a ban of all exports and imports and also restricting entry of all North Korean vessels.

Arata Yamamoto, NBC News producer in Tokyo, contributed to this report.

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