Model for Carver-Hawkeye Sports Area Tower, Dale Eldred

Exhibition Label: "Site Specifics,” Aug-2010, Susan Earle This is a 1/40th scale replica of the 90-foot high “interactive solar sculpture” Eldred proposed to a sculpture competition sponsored by the University of Iowa in 1982. Encased in grey glass, the model incorporates the diffractive, mirrorized, and prismatic elements that were to be part of the actual tower construction. Its prism panels respond to the changing angle of the sun. Increments of time are marked on the exterior of the glass case to illustrate how the tower would respond to the sun at different times of the day and the year. Although the proposed tower was never built, this model stainless-steel diffractive tower Eldred installed in Promenade Park in Toledo, Ohio, in 1984. Eldred was a magnetic presence in the sculpture department at the Kansas City Art Institute for over 30 years. He died in a fall trying to save the artwork in his studio from rising waters during the “500-year flood” of July 1993 in Kansas City.