Shiny, New Glass
After a catastrophic storm, the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium’s signature colored glass has been restored.
One morning in late September, as the sun was starting to break over the University of Arizona Mall, a crew of guys sleepily assembled in front of the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium for an important job. Last July, a storm blew four of the building’s signature colored-glass panels out of the building’s façade, scattering chunks of colored glass nearly thirty feet into the building’s gift shop; the men were here with new panels to replace the boards that have been quietly filling in the gaps.
The panels — about an inch thick, veined with dark-tan grout — were made by Paul Anders-Stout ’04, a Tucson-based artist and associate director at the Sonoran Glass School who first visited Flandrau in 1986 to see Halley’s Comet with his father. “I was really just trying to recreate them,” Anders-Stout says. “You know, take myself out of the picture. It’s helpful as a maker to have parameters. Otherwise, you’re always thinking ‘I could do this, I could do that.’”
The workers pried the plywood boards from their window frames and carefully maneuvered one of the panels from the bed of a truck into a gap in the building’s façade, sealing it in with glue. In the distance, you could hear ROTC members shouting out push-up intervals and the quiet shuffle of a running group making their way down the Mall. Once in, the panel was indistinguishable from its neighbors. (That was the idea.) The men repeated the process on a second panel with a kind of meditative calm. (Anders-Stout has already recreated six panels; as of now, the plan is for him to recreate at least nine.)
Anders-Stout excused himself and came back with a chunk of dark-blue glass from one of the original panels inscribed with the signature of the artist, Ken Toney, and the year 1975. That these new panels are being installed just ahead of what happens to be Flandrau’s 50th anniversary is a coincidence, of course, but it leant the proceedings a lightly ceremonial air. Here, on the corner of Cherry Avenue and the Mall, stands an emblem of the U of A’s steadfast commitment to science and exploration, but also to the simple curiosity where science often starts; to the beautiful things we can see and the equally inspiring things we can’t — at least, not without a really nice telescope. We stood back from the building and watched it fill with morning light. The panels seemed to glow.