Artist Sol LeWitt’s concrete block structure Circle with Towers (2005) will grace the entrance to the new Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex, currently under construction on the east side of Speedway between 21st and 24th streets.

The unveiling of the work will coincide with the opening of the computer science complex in September 2012.

It was purchased by Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin, from the Madison Square Park Conservancy in New York. The work will join Landmarks’ permanent collection of public art on the main campus.

“LeWitt’s structure will serve not only as an object in its own right but also as a new place that will allow students to interact with the Computer Science environment in a way that is informal and was nonexistent before,” said Andrew Houston, a member of the Faculty Building Advisory Committee and architecture and urban studies undergraduate. “It will be a focal point of intellectual debate and exploration—both of its embodied ideas and its physical presence.”

The structure is made of concrete blocks that form a 25-foot-diameter ring, which is intersected by 14-foot-high towers at equal intervals. It represents the modular structures and simple, geometric forms for which LeWitt is acclaimed. He pioneered the development of Minimalism and Conceptual art in the 1960s and 1970s. His ideas value concept over expression, and the execution of his work invites artistic collaboration.

For more information about Sol LeWitt and the Landmarks program, visit http://www.landmarks.utexas.edu/press/sol_lewitt.