Life-size wooly mammoth soon to be UI's newest landmark
Mar. 15—URBANA — When ice sheets still covered much of the state 30,000 years ago, wooly mammoths plodded about the landscapes of central Illinois, perhaps on the future site of the Main Quad.
Paleontological evidence indicates the mammoth went extinct in Illinois about 13,000 years ago. Come Monday, it's making a comeback.
A 12-foot-tall, 15-foot-long sculpture of the creature will be put on display at the southwest corner of the Natural History Building on the University of Illinois campus.
"We chose a mammoth because it's the largest animal since the dinosaurs to have lived in Illinois," explained Steve Marshak, former director of the School of Earth, Society and Environment. "It's a dramatic-looking beast that people can relate to."
The final product, built by Rantoul-based exhibit design firm Taylor Studios, will be driven to campus early Monday. Faculty are already buzzing for its arrival.
"Ten years from now, 'Meet me at the mammoth' is going to be what people say," said SESE Director Bob Rauber.
The Natural History Building's newest neighbor has spent years — not centuries — in the making. The building, which houses the School of Earth, Society and Environment and teaching programs in the School of Integrative Biology, went through a $79 million renovation in 2015.
As part of the state's "Art-In-Architecture" program, capital projects on campus with a budget above $5 million reserve one-half of one percent of construction funds to purchase artwork. The rule went into effect at the UI in 2011.
A faculty and facilities committee co-led by Marshak decided to use the art funds on a mammoth sculpture as a nod to the academic heritage of the building, at the nexus of biology and geology.
The Natural History Building once held the school's Museum of Natural History; its collection included casts of mammoth skeletons.
To meet the committee's mammoth proposal, the university called upon Taylor Studios, a renowned exhibit designer that happens to be based in Rantoul, about 16 miles north of campus.
To the studio's artists and project managers, faculty provided plenty of pointers along the way, from how the mammoth should be posed (in action, with its trunk curled and one foot up), down to the coloration of its head and toenails.
They consulted with paleontologists to catch any errors, and stopped by for frequent check-ins.
"All of us were just in awe, we knew it would be real-to-size, but standing next to it, you can't help but think 'oh, this is real,'" said UI facilities and services interior designer Erika Lee, who managers art-in-architecture installations.
The sculpture will stand in the middle of what Marshak called a "Pleistocene garden," with plants and landscaping built to resemble how the land looked during the Ice Age era, before any humans lived there. A plaque will explain the scene's significance and connection to the area.
"This is honoring a legacy of natural history studies at the University of Illinois," Rauber said. "The idea that the world changes is another idea we'd like to carry over."
If nothing else, it'll be the UI's newest landmark, at a prime location for high-schoolers' campus visits.
"There's going to be a lot of people taking pictures," Rauber said. "It's going to be one of the icons on campus — there's no question about that."
