Fairfax is interested in light installations and interactive works and was touched by the sense of friendship at the University, wanting to reflect that in his piece. When two people stand between the frames, the panels glow, signalling closeness and the beginning of the long-lasting friendships, offering scope for human interaction and couple’s photographs.

The sloping hedges behind the panels represent the hills of Sheffield, and they wrap around one of the oldest oak trees in the area. With that in mind, the sculpture is built into the landscape, making the piece as architectural as it is artistic. Having sculptures in villages makes them feel like more than just halls of residence; they become communities with a culture and atmosphere.

Firth's great-great-grandfather of the same name was a renowned steel manufacturer and founder of Firth College, now the University of Sheffield.

At almost three metres tall, the Ingots serve as a striking visual asset, with the green of Endcliffe student village being complemented by Sheffield’s steel foundations. The sides have oxidised, giving the work its rusted appearance, and have developed a brown-orange exterior that plays into the industrial aesthetic. The top surfaces are polished and reflect the sky, offering a new perspective when viewed by those in flats above ground floor. In his initial proposal, Firth commented that the sculpture could be interpreted as a reflection of the tempering and forging of future academics.

Given the artist’s previously noted connection to the University, it is fitting that this sculpture is located in the building named after his great-great-grandfather. Firth Court was the first building built deliberately for Firth College, the University’s predecessor, and was founded on philanthropic gestures and funds raised by Sheffield workers.

On the Primacy of the Square represents the tool used to generate a perfect right angle and is made to appear solid. The tool itself was invented for precision, and the work needed to create this scaled up model required skilled and accurate metalwork, as is the speciality and interest of Mark Firth. Once again, Firth draws upon influences from Sheffield’s industrial history.

In 1875, Firth became mayor of Sheffield, and in 1879 he founded Firth College. This sculpture was presented to Firth by his contemporaries in 1879 for his contributions to the city of Sheffield. The University is heralded as a truly civic institution due to the gestures of Firth and his townspeople, with Firth’s legacy still being central to the University’s ethics and success.

The pedestal on which the sculpture sits is inscribed in gold lettering which reads:

“MARK FIRTH ESQ / FOUNDER / OF THIS COLLEGE / PRESENTED / BY HIS TOWNSMEN / 1879”

Albert Bruce Joy (1842-1924), the artist, was a famed portrait sculptor. Some of his other installations include a statue of William Gladstone in London and William Harvey in Kent.

Thorvaldsen was one of the greatest neoclassical sculptors of the nineteenth century. Neoclassicism aimed at capturing the essence of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. In the top panel, Thorvaldsen depicts Pan, a heroic Greek god with the horns and legs of a goat. In the lower panel he portrays a Bacchante, a follower of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine. In both, there is a baby Satyr. Mythological creatures symbolised the ideal virtues displayed by the ancient gods.

Thorvaldsen had a studio in Rome for 40 years, where he employed a number of assistants to help create his work. These reliefs are half of a set of four, though it is undocumented how many were adapted from the original plaster cast created by Thorvaldsen.

Upon entrance to the Alfred Denny Building, you are greeted by a huge 7-panel sculpture depicting the discoveries of Charles Darwin. Denny was the University’s first Professor of Biology.

Jason Thomson, a local sculptor, was commissioned to create these panels. Thomson’s studio is on Brown Street in Sheffield, and his medium and scale of output varies substantially. This carved relief was made from a single oak tree. Each panel reflects a range of interests among the students and staff in the department. For example, Darwin is depicted amidst the skull of a gorilla and a fossil, representing the theory of evolution. The pile of books is indicative of both Darwin’s research and the scholarship produced by the department.

Four Rings is rough and skeletal in shape, with varying textures on each surface. The base is smooth on top but scraped round the edges, and the rings themselves have an organic texture which illustrates Wright’s commitment to representing naturality. Wright moved to his ‘adopted county’ of Yorkshire in 1937, where he was inspired by the local landscape, and the ring form is recurrent in his art.

Four Rings is asymmetrical and offers a 360 viewpoint where the form changes depending on which angle it is observed from.The Sheffield University’s Fine Art Society organised the exhibition and purchased the sculpture, later donating it to the University Heritage Collections in the 1990s.

Sorby became the first president of the University in 1882. To this day he is internationally acclaimed for his work in geology, with many journals and organisations existing in his name, such as the Sorby Natural History Society.

Due to his popularity, various busts of Sorby exist around Sheffield. This has led to discussion about who the sculptor was. A plaster cast was given to Weston Park Museum in 1882 by William Ellis, and it is believed that the University’s sculpture is the marble version of this cast. Ellis was a member of the Sheffield Society of Artists and was a relatively successful portrait sculptor.

One base of this DNA strand is flipped out to represent the discovery by Xiaodong Cheng and Richard Roberts. Together, they discovered the first base flip, a revolutionary breakthrough concerning the repairment of DNA. Roberts is an alumnus of the University of Sheffield, and he earned a Nobel Prize for his findings in 1993.

Andrew Langley specialises in large metal sculptures. The inner bases of this sculpture are welded to the outer spiral, and they have a rainbow stain that occurs when steel is heated past a certain point. In diagrams of a base flip, the inner strands are often depicted in multicolour to indicate the various nucleobases, and the rainbow stain reflects this.

Harry Kroto, an alumnus of the University of Sheffield, discovered the buckyball in 1985 and received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for his breakthrough. Buckyballs are made of carbon atoms and are hollow like a ball. The phenomenon was so named because of its resemblance to the domed projects of architect Buckminster Fuller.

Kroto’s work went beyond his scientific research, and he was extraordinarily passionate about making science accessible for the younger generations. He visited the University of Sheffield every year after his discovery to run workshops on his research and to expose South Yorkshire Schools to an engaging and practical side of science.