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Breaking Bonds – by Stephen Luecking
1998 / Stainless Steel and Copper.
Commissioned by the Illinois CBD Art in Architecture Program
Location: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Material Science Building).

“One of the rewards of my landing a public commission is the opportunity to once again work with Vector. The level of craft and art knowledge and their superb problem solving skills make them as much the sculptors’ colleagues and collaborators as their fabricator.”

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Breaking Bonds – This three-part sculpture rests in a central courtyard among three chemistry buildings dedicated to materials science, physical chemistry and organic chemistry. It incorporates the forms of carbon molecules characteristic to each field. Most prominent is a large “soccer ball” representing the geometry of a man-made carbon atom, called the buckminsterfullerene or bucky ball. Two shapes have broken free and left a rupture in the ball. One is a single hexagon, reminiscent of a graphite platelet; the other suggests an organic molecule.

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Rising Rings – by Stephen Luecking

1994

Cast iron band / 8′ x 12′ x 18′

The sundial has a hole that casts a beam of light into the central ring monument on the equinoxes.

Momorail of Ambika Paul. Commissioned by Lord Swaraj Paul, founder of Caparo Steel.

Location: Caparo Steel, Farrell, Pennsylvanis.

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The”Rising Rings” sundial was commissioned by Dr. Swraj Paul, a steel mill owner, to honor his daughter Ambika who died in 1968 of leukemia at age four. This monument honors the inspiration her joy of life instilled in her father. At the central of the dial is a cast iron ring that holds a bronze image of her that is illuminated for several days twice a year. On two dates, Ambika’s birthday and the anniversary of the mill’s re-opening the noon sunlight passes through the circular opening in the larger ring and strikes markers on the inner ring. Miklos Simon created the portrait of Ambika mounted on the smaller ring.

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Upwells – by Stephen Luecking

1992

Granite, bronze and cast iron / Spire is 40 ft tall.

Location: Center quad of North Science Campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Commissioned by John Needles Chester Fund and the Illinois Capital Development Board (CDB) Percent for Art Program. A location-specific, public, environmental sculpture won design awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1992 and 1995.

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This piece is a Solar Meridian Calendar.The spire functions as a sundial which points to marker wells at local Solar Noon on the Winter and Summer Solstices and on the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes. A tube embedded in the back sphere allows visitors to sight on the tip of the spire to locate the Polar Star.

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Gyrator – by Stephen Luecking

1990

The sculpture’s concrete base features noon and seasonal markers
that measure the daily rotation of earth and the annual orbit of the sun.

Commission from Art Program of the State of Illinois

Location: Giant City State Park, Makanda, Illinois.

“Gyrator” takes the form of a synthesis between giant top and a gyroscope. Alignments built into the concrete pad record the gyrations of the heavens as created by the circadian and annual motion of the earth. The sun marks noon each day as a disk of light falls between two parallel lines cut into the concrete. The same disk of light rings bronze plaques embedded in the concrete at the start of each season.