For drivers heading east on the A63 near Hull in the early hours of Sunday morning, it may have been something of a shock. A 75-metre-long object resembling a giant pointed tusk, perched on two slow-moving lorries, is a rare sight on the Yorkshire roads.

This was the Blade, the vast turbine arm that has been installed in the centre of Hull, the first major artwork commissioned to mark its year as the UK’s city of culture.

It is a title that, despite only being one week in, has already brought major benefits to the long-neglected Yorkshire city. The opening project, Made in Hull, in which light and sound installations were projected on buildings across the city every evening, brought in 342,000 visitors. It made Hull far and away the most visited attraction in the UK last week, beating both the British Museum and Tate Modern.

Hopes for sustaining the city’s cultural momentum now rest on the Blade, which, once installed at an angle from the pavement and pointing to the sky, occupied almost all the space above Hull’s Queen Victoria Square.

It is an artwork speaking directly to the city’s industrial past and future. The Blade is the first B75 wind turbine blade to come off the production line at the nearby Siemens factory, which opened in Hull in November, creating 1,000 new jobs and providing a much needed economic boost to the area.

The concept of turning an industrial rotor blade into a piece of public art was the work of artist Nayan Kulkarni.

“I knew how many negotiations and deals had gone into getting Siemens to open their plant in the city, and the impact it would have on the area, so it felt almost self-evident to ask them to donate a blade,” said Kulkarni. “You didn’t need to make a new sculpture, there was one already being made right here.”

But he had not expected the blade to be so aesthetically graceful. “I knew about its physical size and form, and the meaning it would have when you put it in a public space like this, but what I didn’t realise was that these turbine blades were beautiful and slippery and organic.

“As soon as you take it out of the factory context it becomes something arabesque and sculptural, almost like a whale bone or a fish. In the factory they call them wings.”

Installing it was no mean feat. It left the factory at 2am on Sunday and took almost four hours to drive the four miles to Hull’s Queen Victoria Square, navigating several tight corners and the narrow, winding lanes of the city centre. A team of 70 were dedicated to getting the sculpture – weighing 28 tonnes and worth £350,000 – in place in the square and elevated five metres above the ground, a process that took all day.

Siemens bussed in all the staff on the early shift at 6am to see the Blade arrive in the square. Andy Yates, one of the team leaders who prepares the turbine blades in their final stage, said: “It does transform what it is, seeing it in the city centre. When it’s in the factory I do see it as a bit of a sculpture, because of the size and the sheer ferocity of it, but see it moving down the side streets of Hull, fully painted, is just a completely different experience. I’d like to think people will be surprised how artistic it is.”

The Blade is the first of the city’s Look Up art commissions and will remain in the square until March. From early morning, crowds gathered to stare in awe at the vast sculpture. More than 100,000 people took to the streets on Saturday night for the final chance to see Made in Hull for themselves.

The opening project, conceived by Bafta-winning Hull film-maker Sean McCallister, saw 12 different light and sound projections set up around the city, which spoke to everything from the city’s fishing past and flattening in the war, to football, nightlife, and, in a city which 68% voted to leave Europe, the vital role immigration has played over its history.

McCallister said he had been overwhelmed by the public’s response to the project. He and Martin Green, the director of Hull 2017, had made the decision not to have an opening ceremony and instead have a week-long event without any grandeur or pretension which anyone in the city could come and see, or stumble upon by accident. An invitation was put through every door in the city.

“The most common word I’ve heard is proud – proud about themselves, proud about the city – which is great because I think through the decades of despair, and national joking about Hull, there was a question about how to present the city in a way that was real and representative to the people,” McCallister said the following morning.

“We didn’t want it too arty-farty or snooty because people would just feel like it wasn’t for them, and we knew we had to make it so fucking good we got people talking.”

He added: “We had a big task convincing people that the city of culture is for everyone but last night is was just jam-packed. I was showing John Prescott round and he said he had never, ever seen anything like this in Hull.”