If you want to skip the preamble here, just use the links at the left.

Renovations to the Physics and Astronomy Building have recently begun, resulting in removal of most of the vines, shrubs and trees which obscure the view of the sculptures on the building. That prompted me to take a new and more complete set of photographs of the building over the 2010 Easter weekend. I have updated and greatly extended the web site using these new photos, but the original pages from 2006 are also still accessible.

The purpose of this site is to help draw attention to the existence of these remarkable carvings, and help people find them. These images are primarily for identification purposes and are not the greatest photos; in particular, many of them have been taken from a great distance, and a number of the sculptures are still partially obscured by vines.		 winking man

For exceptionally good photos of the sculptures I look forward to the results of a project planned by Alan Noon for the coming summer, to photograph the sculptures at close range from a "cherry picker". The vines still obscuring the sculptures will be removed at the same time, and I hope to be able to update this site with some vine-free photos next fall.

The present campus of the University of Western Ontario began in 1922 with the start of construction of University College, the Science Building (now the Physics and Astronomy Building), the heating plant, and the bridge across the Thames River. The Science building was completed in 1924, and builder John Putherbough hired stone mason Dan Cree of Hamilton, Ontario to work on the building. The sculptures on the facade are not cast from moulds, but were carved on site, and should be considered as original works of art. In their number and quality the stone carvings of the building are unique on the campus. I am indebted to Alan Noon for much valuable information about the building and its carvings. A recent article in Western News also has interesting background information.

The links at the left take you to three different pages:
  • The Facades page is similar to the original 2006 page, showing where the stone carvings are located on each of the three facades, excluding the reliefs around the three entrances. This page shows all 52 of the major carvings plus the 14 smaller reliefs above the south entrance.
  • The Entrances page shows all the small reliefs (72 in all) around each of the three original entrances to the building in a manner similar to the Facades page.
  • If you want to know where a particular carving is to be found, look at the Sculpture Tables page, which shows all 138 sculptures and reliefs.