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Located just outside of the old Reptile House, now the Park Place CafETB3, Sunform has a plaque…
Location:
2045 N Lincoln Park West
Chicago, IL 60614
Location Notes:
Center Plaza South of Park Place Café
Located Within:
Lincoln (Abraham) Park
Artist:
David L. Rodgers
Installed:
1984
Year Relocated:
1998
Features:
Outdoor, Sculpture
Description
Artist David Rodgers created Sunform—a modern interpretation of a classic sundial—for the Lincoln Park Zoo. Standing eleven-feet-high and weighing five tons, the limestone sundial displays the correct sun time on its horizontal arch. Donated by CitiCorp in honor of the Lincoln Park Zoological Society’s twenty-fifth anniversary, Sunform was dedicated in 1984.
In the book, In Limestone Country, author Scott Russell Sanders describes David Rodgers as a sculptor with a “fierce enthusiasm for his art and for limestone.” In describing his intentions for his work, Rodgers said, “I hope the children climbing over what I’ve made, looking at the shadows and the play of light, will understand things about our place in the scheme of things, understand even without being able to say quite what it is they’ve learned.” When the zoo’s old Reptile House was renovated into the Park Place Café in the late 1990s, the five ton sculpture was repositioned to serve as a visual focal point in the outdoor space.