The G-Nome Project

“Look at that tall building with the 12-foot terra cotta sculpture that stands on top of the corner!” Numerous buildings around Iowa State Campus have extremely distinctive designs. Each design in each building has very deep construals to understand the purpose and history of the building. One of the buildings that stood out was from an artist named Andrew Leicester who designed the G-Nome on the Molecular Biology Building and many other artifacts as a component of the G-Nome Project in 1992. The G-Nome is plenary of meaning because Andrew Leicester’s title, The G-Nome Project, is a play on two relevant words genome and gnome. One of the words is genome which is a scientific term for a complete set of chromosomes in a cell or organism. In

When looked at carefully, they are the “x” and “y” chromosome in the human body. The black part of the rods represents the black suits worn by business people. Also, the white part represents the lab coats worn by scientists, researchers, and other health care professionals. The checkered pattern across the body resembles something like a crossword puzzle which denotes the challenges the undergraduate students have to face inside the classrooms in the building. Trailing up each side of the Molecular Biology Building right beneath the G-Nomes is a twinning pattern of ceramic tiles that illustrate strands or replicating deoxyribonucleic acid. These strands of DNA wrapped around each corner of the building. These strands also symbolically hold the secrets of life being discovered inside the building. Lastly, the strands of DNA also symbolize the secrets of life within themselves. With all these components connecting with one another, the overall meaning of the G-Nome significantly increases. The way Andrew Leicester integrated his work of arts in the Molecular Biology Building gave the entire building its uniqueness that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. This is but one out of the numerous ingenious pieces of art on Iowa State