When worlds collide
By Elizabeth Licata
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Dr. Herbert Hauptman with the art glass. Photo by Gloria J. DelBel.
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We thought we’d already told you everything there was to know about the Hauptman-Woodward building—the aesthetics of it, anyway. (We don’t have a clue about the actual work that goes on inside; even the brainy, prize-winning scientists who work there have a hard time explaining that stuff.) But here’s an aspect of this gorgeous piece of contemporary architecture that’s not instantly apparent to the driver-by.
A large glass artwork by Denise Stillwagon Leone across the Ellicott Street side of the building depicts some of the concepts and formulas associated with H-W’s scientific research. According to their description, the ten-by-thirty-two-foot piece of art glass, acting as a front window near the entrance, depicts three crucial scientific concepts, as follows:
The three large circular patterns are a Laue diffraction pattern of lysozyme. Each spot in the pattern represents diffraction from a plane of atoms in the crystal. The pattern of molecules running in a wave through the bottom of the piece is the packing pattern of a steroid studied in Dr. William Duax’s laboratory at HWI depicting how the molecules arrange themselves in the crystal lattice. Dr. Duax has had a thirty-five-year-long study of steroid hormones, their analogues, and the enzymes with which they interact. The mathematical formula which runs across the length of the art glass is Dr. Herbert A. Hauptman’s minimum function formula, which he and his group used to develop a suite of computer programs to help solve large crystal structures.
We’re taking their word, but we did wonder how much the artist had to understand before she was able to fabricate the glass. According to Tara Ellis of H-W, Leone did get a crash course of sorts and scientists had to approve her drawings at every stage of production.The finished piece is something that anyone visiting the medical campus should take the time to inspect.
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