Frozen Maze Will Grace Quad

In an effort to bring art to the wilderness, the Radcliffe Quadrangle will cap off three years of renovations this winter by showcasing a "walls of ice" artistic project, Office of the Arts officials said yesterday.

As the first step in the "Year of the Quad" celebration, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture Michael R. Van Valkenburgh at the Graduate School of Design is designing a series of 7-foot high wire mesh walls that will be iced nightly.

The ice walls project is part of a series of three artistic endeavors using the Quad as the artists' canvas, according to Office of the Arts head and Cabot House Master Myra A. Mayman.

The first project, which was to bedeck the Quad with tiger stripes, was originally scheduled for this fall, but was postponed because of delays in the Quad renovations, said Mayman. Mayman said that a spring project is in the works.

Van Valkenburgh, who was featured in yesterday's New York Times, has been researching the use of ice in permanent art since 1980 when he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Endowment was interested in research on ice art because currently "there's no technical information on it," Van Valkenburgh said at yesterday's planning meeting in Cabot House.

The landscape architect said he hoped the Quad project, tentatively scheduled for unveiling February 5th, would be more than a sculpture. It could be "a simple maze with a real passage way," said Van Valkenburgh. "I want to make a place for people to separate themselves from their preoccupations."

The ice sculpture also may be lit "to give it another kind of life and quality at night," Van Valkenburgh said.

Van Valkenburgh said that he and Brian Aviles, his graduate student assistant, have considered making the light "blood red neon--something warm and visceral in the winter."

"It might be fun to do something with salvaged Christmas trees" to form a sort of hedge inside parts of the maze,Van Valkenburgh.

The three students present at the planningmeeting said they were pleased that the ice wallswould soon be gracing the Quad. "I like the ideaof it being an experience--not just something tolook at," said Cabot House resident Russ Muirhead'88.

The students also offered their own ideas forthe project. Richard L. Meyer '88, also of Cabot,proposed one of the more off-the-wall plans,suggesting that the walls be designed to forminterlocking circles to replicate the Olympicemblem in honor of this winter's Olympics.

However, support for the project is notunanimous among quadlings. Charles M. Kodner '89of Currier House said, `I hope that these things[the ice walls] don't go up."

Kodner, who wrote a letter to Mayman expressinghis displeasure with the project, said he will notcontinue to press his position if other studentsdo not express opposition. "This isn't something Iwant turned into an active crusade," said Kodner,who was unable to attend yesterday's meeting