If you’re a student here at Purdue, there’s no way you could have missed the big statue of Neil Armstrong right outside none other than the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering. The 8 foot tall, 125 percent scale, bronze sculpture sits right behind the new arc at Stadium and Northwestern. Trailing along behind it is a number of sculpted moon boot impressions made from a REAL moon boot given to the university by the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. How cool is that!? These some 20 moon boot impressions are parallel to the walkway and are spaced just right to show the idea of a “leaping moon walker”. These moon boot impressions give us the chance as students here at Purdue to literally “walk in the footsteps” of a great astronaut. I've always seen the sculpture but I'd never even seen the moonboots before! Thats crazy! Artist Chas Fagan did a great job with detail in the sculpture. He made the retired astronaut look as if he was on his way to class, being a former student at Purdue. The statue is wearing a button down shirt, khaki pants, penny loafers, and a typical button down college windbreaker (well, at least typical for the 1950’s…). The artist got to meet with Neil Armstrong himself to get input from him in the design of the statue. There were no pictures of Armstrong’s profile before the making of this sculpture so when Fagan met with him he took pictures of his face in different angles to make sure it was as life-like as possible. Although Mr. Armstrong is much older than the time this statue recreates, the profile of someone’s face never changes so Fagan was able to create an image of what he looked like in the 1950’s.
In honor of Neil Armstrong’s accomplishments, this statue was unveiled at a dedication ceremony for the new engineering research and education building and named after him for being the first astronaut to walk on the moon. When President of the university, France A. Cordova was asked about the sculpture she said, “When our students see this sculpture, I hope they’ll believe that they, like Mr. Armstrong, can achieve the unimaginable. I hope it will inspire them to reach for the stars.” There’s so much history here, I can’t believe it! Pretty cool, huh?
1 comment:
I never knew any of this information about the Neil Armstrong statue! It is really fascinating that the Smithsonian donated an actual moon boot for the use on the sculpture. I've always really loved this sculpture, mostly because it makes for a sweet picture when you sit next to it, but now my whole perspective on it is changes. The quote from Mr. Armstrong at the end is truly wise, and I do not think I will look at this statue the same way any more. Great blog though! It was an extremely interesting topic, and it was full of great information about the piece of art that I think all of your readers will appreciate.
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