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Maya Lin’s “Floating Landscape” on the University of Texas campus will feature at night the constellations visible on Sept. 15, 1883, the date of UT’s founding.<\/p>\n
University of Texas Landmarks<\/p>\n
Maya Lin, the famed American architect, designer and sculptor behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial<\/a> in Washington, D.C., and the Civil Rights Memorial<\/a> in Montgomery, Alabama, is slated to produce her first work in Texas.<\/p>\n In 2027, the grounds of the new Autry C. Stephens Engineering Discovery Building<\/a> on the University of Texas campus will become home to a subtle, 3,600-square-foot outdoor structure titled \u201cFloating Landscape.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Renderings show students resting in a restored meadow that rolls around an opening that, as dusk grows, will display the alignment of stars over Austin from Sept. 15, 1883, the date of UT\u2019s founding<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe new engineering building was approved in 2021, and I reached out to Maya in 2022,\u201d said Andr\u00e9e Bober,<\/a> founding director and curator of Landmarks, UT\u2019s award-winning public art program, which includes selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. \u201cI had admired her practice for years and felt she was the ideal artist for this project because her work moves fluidly between sculpture, landscape, architecture and environmental design.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Engineers solve problems creatively, Bober points out, and that\u2019s how Lin approaches a site.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe wasn\u2019t asking where the work of art should go. She was asking how the landscape itself could become the art,\u201d Bober continued. \u201cThat\u2019s a fundamentally different way of thinking and the kind of ambition we hoped to bring to this project.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Where to see \u2018Floating Landscape\u2019<\/p>\n Maya Lin attends the 2022 Time100 Gala.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Loccisano\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The new building, designed by CO Architects for the highly ranked Cockrell School of Engineering<\/a>, sits in a flood-prone area above Waller Creek<\/a>, which runs through the heart of campus alongside San Jacinto Boulevard.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe university has been committed to restoring the 1,300-foot stretch on our grounds for many years, so improving stormwater management was already part of the scope,\u201d Bober said. \u201cWhat impressed me was that Maya didn\u2019t see that as a constraint but as an opportunity. Her design creates a meadow of native grasses and herbaceous plants, developed in consultation with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center<\/a> (and Lion Heart Places).<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “The plantings will help absorb excess water, slow erosion, and restore habitat. I love that the engineering is in plain sight. It\u2019s solving a real problem while creating a landscape people will want to spend time in. That\u2019s where the art and the engineering come together.\u201d<\/p>\n On April 9, 2027, UT will host a public conversation between Maya Lin and Jana La Brasca, an art historian and curatorial contributor for the project.<\/p>\n \u201cMuch of my work begins with the landscape and the experience of moving through space,\u201d Lin said. \u201cThis project grew out of the ecology of the site and the openness of the Texas sky, creating a gathering place within the daily life of the university.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At night, it will glow with embedded LED lights that correspond to the constellations in the Texas sky at a specific point in history. This celestial reference reflects Lin\u2019s longtime interest in connecting natural systems with civic identity and cultural memory.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThe lighting is one of my favorite aspects because it\u2019s something people may not even notice on their first visit,\u201d Bober said. \u201cEmbedded in the floating landscape are points of light that recreate the Texas night sky as it appeared over Austin on September 15, 1883, the day the university was founded. It\u2019s a quiet gesture that connects the university\u2019s past with the students who will shape its future.\u201d<\/p>\n Roger Bonnecaze, dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering, added that the art \u201creflects the kind of interdisciplinary thinking that defines engineering at UT. The project brings together design, material innovation, environmental awareness and public engagement in a way that will inspire our students for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n Maya Lin before Texas<\/p>\n During the day, Maya Lin’s “Floating Landscape” is designed to attract students and others to relax in a restored meadow above Waller Creek.<\/p>\n University of Texas Landmarks<\/p>\n In 1981, while Lin was still a 21-year-old undergraduate at Yale University, she won a coveted commission for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The controversial choice of an Asian American artist and her minimalist proposal \u2014 a long, low stretch of black granite panels engraved with the names of service members who had died in the Vietnam War \u2014 led critics to call the design a \u201cblack gash of shame.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Yet once completed, it became one of the most enduring attractions on the National Mall. Visitors who lost family, friends or combat buddies in the war immediately searched the alphabetical list of names. In 2007, it was ranked No. 10 in an American Institute of Architects poll of America’s Favorite Architecture.\u00a0<\/p>\n The nearby Vietnam Women\u2019s Memorial and the representational \u201cThree Soldiers\u201d statues salute nurses and combatants in more traditional ways.<\/p>\n Lin\u2019s public works include \u201cA Parallel Nature\u201d for JPMorgan Chase\u2019s global headquarters and \u201cWavefield,\u201d her largest earthwork to date, located at the Storm King Art Center near New Windsor, New York.<\/p>\n Bober emphasized why Lin, with this background, was commissioned for this particular project.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t commission artists because we already know what they should make,\u201d Bober said. \u201cWe want them to ask questions the rest of us haven\u2019t thought to ask. We knew we wanted a significant work of art for the site, but we didn\u2019t prescribe what form it should take.\u201d<\/p>\n Lin came back with a proposal to create a gathering place and restore part of the landscape\u00a0while addressing the site\u2019s environmental challenges all at once, Bober said. \u201cThose were ideas we hadn\u2019t anticipated, which is exactly what you hope for in a commission.\u201d<\/p>\n Lin\u2019s finished project is expected to fit into Landmarks\u2019 success story, already acknowledged as one of the best university public art programs. Among its gems are \u201cMonocrome for Austin,<\/a>\u201d artist Nancy Rubins\u2019s dynamic assembly of 70 or so recycled aluminum canoes in front of the Norman Hackerman Building; \u201cThe Color Inside<\/a>,\u201d one of James Turrell\u2019s “Skyspaces,” housed on the roof of the William C. Powers, Jr. Student Activity Center, and, most recently, \u201cAutobiography: Circles,\u201d a dazzling four-story glass fa\u00e7ade assembly by artist Howardena Pindell at the George I. S\u00e1nchez Building.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cFew artists have shaped the American public imagination as profoundly as Maya Lin,\u201d Bober said. \u201cWhat moves me most about \u2018Floating Landscape\u2019 is the way it invites people to inhabit the work rather than simply observe it. It functions as civic infrastructure, creating a place that is sculpture, habitat, observatory and public commons all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maya Lin’s “Floating Landscape” on the University of Texas campus will feature at night the constellations visible on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-408570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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