Szilassi Polyhedron - Whitehall, Michigan - Abstract Public Sculptures on Waymarking.com

As taken from mlive.com: "Those who travel along the Fred Meijer Berry Junction Trail might notice something different on their route next week.

The Arts Council of White Lake, which created and maintains an Art Walk along the trails, will unveil its latest piece, "Szilassi Polyhedron" on Aug. 29 at 10 a.m. at the corner of Cogswell Street and White Lake Drive, across from the HarborLight Credit Union along the bike trail. The piece, which was built with funds donated by the credit union, is a physical representation of a mathematical formula developed by Hungarian mathematician Lajos Szilassi in the 1970s.

Tim Carr of Black Bear Forge fabricated the steel structure, which weighs in at about one ton, measures seven feet tall and has seven sides. Each face of the piece is an irregular hexagon, according to a press release, and touches all six other faces.

One side of the sculpture was made with stainless steel while the other six were used ordinary steel, so the piece will continually change as it rusts over time.

Phil Vander Pol, chairman of the Art Council of White Lake's Art Walk committee, said the group chose the erect the sculpture because it was "unusual."

"It's quite striking, particularly if you have an interest in math and geometry," he said.

Vander Pol said this will be the ninth sculpture on the Art Walk.

Carr said the constructing the form posed some challenges.

"There's actually some websites that let you go and see it (the polyhedron) and at no point is there one that has dimensions," he said. Carr said he found a website that let users print out a template to build a small paper version of the polyhedron and he used that as a template for his work. He said he took the template to a copy machine at Office Max and blew it up as large as he could to get the dimensions he needed for the piece.

Even then, he said, he had to make them five times larger to bring the sculpture to its present size.

"The dimensioning was a real effort," Carr said.

Constructing the piece was also a process, he said. All of the pieces are at an angle, Carr said, so to assemble the sculpture, he built a wooden platform to hold each side in place until he welded them together.

"It was quite an experience to build," he said.

Carr said he did most of the work by himself. He also said the sculpture took him "a better part of a whole week to build this thing."

He called the finished product "a pretty cool piece."

"I think it's a really interesting shape in the fact that when you look at it, every piece does touch," he said. "It's really neat."

Email Lisha Arino at larino@mlive.com, subscribe to her Facebook posts and follow her on Twitter: @lishaarino.

Title: Szilassi Polyhedron Artist: Tim Carr Media (materials) used: Steel Location (specific park, transit center, library, etc.): Fred Meijer Berry Junction Trail Date of creation or placement: August 29, 2012

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