Hours cast in shadow.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

To properly appreciate the year's longest day, it helps to have a really tall clock.

The University of Oregon has one, and today's summer solstice will find a flock of professors hanging around it, literally marking time. The clock is a sun clock, and as our star makes its languid trek across the sky, they will map a bit of its hourly progress on the ground.

It's part of a project with the humble goal of uniting art and science, perhaps commemorating peace and reconciliation and just maybe creating a signature edifice that could one day stand as the most recognized spot on campus.

"This brings art and scholarship together in a dramatic way," said UO history professor John Nicols, one of a cadre of campus supporters advancing the project.

You can call it a solarium, and it works much like a sundial. It is, for now, a temporary structure made of wood that sits in the grassy quad north of the library, but it is a nearly exact replica of the stone version its supporters hope will be built in the next year or so.

The shadow-casting obelisk, also known as a gnomon, is only half of the clock. The other is a grid or clock face spread out on the ground on which time can be read, a part known as the horologium.

That's the part that will be marked out beginning at solar noon today. With the sun at its zenith, a marker will be driven into the ground at the apex of the obelisk's shadow. That mark will be key to laying out the rest of the grid.

Just for the record, solar noon does not coincide with clock noon. For one thing, daylight-saving time pushes solar noon an hour past clock noon, and the fact that Eugene is west of the Pacific Time Zone meridian adds about another 15 minutes. That puts solar noon at about 1:15 p.m. PDT.

One other item for the record: Summer officially begins at 11:06 a.m. local time.

At this point, the obelisk and grid are temporary. The grid will be chalked in, like the lines on a baseball field, and the obelisk is expected to come down in six months, after marking the shortest day of the year in December when its shadow will be at its longest.

Getting the project this far has been perhaps one of the most interdisciplinary efforts in UO history, drawing supporters from more than a dozen academic disciplines and beyond. Nicols particularly notes the contributions of craftspeople in the facilities services department who built the temporary obelisk to exacting detail.

"The craftsmanship that went into this is superb," he said. "They put all their best efforts into making this work."

The 10-meter-tall obelisk (just shy of 34 feet in the local measure) is a half-scale replica of one of the ancient world's most famous timepieces, the Horologium of Augustus, that stood in the Altar of Peace in Rome. It is considered to be the first timepiece based on the then-new Julian calendar and the first that could track hours and days instead of just seasons.

Just as the Roman version was erected as a monument to peace and reconciliation, supporters of the UO project hope the campus monument can carry a similar dedication. And the unification of art and science - embodied in the gnomon and the horologium - would make it the only such combination on campus, they say.

Physics professor Robert Zimmerman, another solarium backer, noted that many people believe that the UO lacks a single identifying view, a place that serves as a widely recognized symbol of the university. Perhaps, if it is built, the solarium eventually will become that signature place, the spot where people will pose for the picture that says "Here I am at the University of Oregon."

"It could become that distinctive," he said.

Where that spot would be, though, remains open to discussion. Some like the site of the temporary model; others suggest incorporating it into an expanded plaza centered on University Street between the Erb Memorial Union and the Collier House. Others question whether such a monument is appropriate at all.

Funding the edifice is another open question. Cost estimates range from less than $200,000 to more than $500,000, depending on where it's built and what is built around it.

One idea that's been floated is to use the monument as a way to commemorate the conclusion of the UO's largest-ever fund drive, an effort to raise $600 million. With $517 million committed so far, the drive is nearing the home stretch and is expected to conclude next year.

That leaves a fair number of issues up in the air. And on a campus with a famous appetite for debate, it remains to be seen whether the solarium, even with its broad support, will be a uniter rather than a divider.

For his part, Nicols hopes that the temporary version will give people a chance to think about the idea and even get used to the obelisk, smoothing a path for a permanent marker. It's a thought that seems to fit nicely with the idea of a solar timepiece.

"We won't convince all the people, but we hope a significant number will find the project attractive and be open to discuss where to place it," he said.

"I think it'll take a bit of time, but I also think time is on our side."