[...]it looked sad. Bereft. Windswept. Could have doubled as a 1970s civic plaza. I should get a large ugly sculpture and place it in the middle, preferably something rusty and inhumane that symbolizes man’s inhumanity to fellow man. Specifically, the men who must walk across the plaza every day in fear that a sharp wind will throw them against the Art and require a tetanus inoculation.
Damn, I thought. Sounds just like MIT and Calder's Big
Sail.
La Grande Voile is strategically placed along that plaza so that students have a prayer of getting into Building 10, also known (although not on campus) as the I.M. Pei building. AKA (on campus) as a royal pain in the ass since you have to go up two steep flights of stairs to get to the main level of the building, and one of the most-frequently-used large lecture halls, 10-250.
I've always liked the Big Sail. It is not ugly, nor does it symbolize man's inhumanity to man. I've always enjoyed the fact that Calder admitted right up front that the sculpture was intended to be a pretty wind-break. But Lilek's riff on a strong gust leading to the need for a tetanus booster brought back memories I didn't realize I had.
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