Nuclear Energy (sculpture)
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| Artist | Henry Moore |
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| Year | 1967 |
| Type | Bronze |
| Dimensions | Divergent measurements exist; see text |
| Location | University of Chicago (outdoor) at the former site of the Stagg Field west stands, Chicago, Illinois |
Nuclear Energy is a bronze sculpture by Henry Moore that is located on the campus of the University of Chicago at the site of the world's first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1. The first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated here on December 2, 1942.
Nuclear Energy is located on Ellis Avenue, between the Max Palevsky West dormitory and the Mansueto Library in the Hyde Park community area of Chicago. The location commemorates the exact location where the Manhattan Project team devised the first nuclear reactor to produce the first self-sustaining controlled nuclear reaction under the now demolished west stands of the old Stagg Field.
The sculpture was commissioned by the B. F. Ferguson monument fund.
It’s a rather strange thing really but I’d already done the idea for this sculpture before Professor McNeill and his colleagues from the University of Chicago came to see me on Sunday morning to tell me about the whole proposition. They told me (which I’d only vaguely known) that Fermi, the Italian nuclear physicist, started or really made the first successful controlled nuclear fission in a temporary building. I think it was a squash court - a wooden building - which from the outside looked entirely unlike where a thing of such an important nature might take place. But this experiment was carried on in secret and it meant that by being successful Man was able to control this huge force for peaceful purposes as well as destructive ones. They came to me to tell me that they thought where such an important event in history took place ought to be marked and they wondered whether I would do a sculpture which would stand on the spot. (Henry Moore quoted in Art Journal, New York, spring 1973, p.286)
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