Image: Landmarks, The University of Texas at Austin
Landmarks, the public art program of the University of Texas at Austin, has commissioned a new work by Maya Lin titled Floating Landscape. Landmarks published the announcement on 17 August 2026; Glasstire reported it the following day. Landmarks states it is Lin’s first work of public art and first commission in Texas.
The 3,600-square-foot work will stand on the grounds of the Autry C. Stephens Engineering Discovery Building, a new Cockrell School of Engineering facility designed by CO Architects. Landmarks describes a semi-elevated, curved concrete structure with a central opening; at night, embedded LED lights will correspond to the constellations in the Texas sky on 15 September 1883, the date UT Austin was founded.
The sculpture will be embedded in a restored meadow Lin designed in collaboration with Lionheart Places and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, planted with native grasses and herbaceous species chosen for long-term ecological health. The site also supports the ongoing ecological restoration of Waller Creek. Students, staff and visitors will be able to walk on the undulating form and gather in the meadow.
Lin has said the project grew out of the ecology of the site and the openness of the Texas sky. Andrée Bober, Landmarks founding director and curator, describes the work as civic infrastructure that people inhabit rather than observe — at once sculpture, habitat, observatory and public commons. The commission was supported by Cockrell School of Engineering alumnus Peyton Yates (B.S. and M.S. in petroleum engineering, 1965 and 1966).
Landmarks will celebrate the opening in April 2027 with a public conversation between Lin and Jana La Brasca, an art historian and curatorial contributor to the project who completed her art history doctorate at UT in 2025. Glasstire gives the opening date as 9 April 2027; the Landmarks announcement says only April 2027, with further details to follow in the coming months. Lin first drew national attention in 1982 with her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The work is a permanent campus installation, so no end date applies.
