The official description of Grace Plaza tells part of the story. The outdoor learning landscape on the North Campus surrounded by Ketter, Davis, Jarvis, Bell, Bonner and Furnas halls was designed as a place for faculty, staff and students to take time from their busy days to stop and reflect.
<p>Dig a little deeper — or just walk a little farther inside the grounds — and the story expands and gets a lot better. There’s a small exhibit in the middle of the courtyard with a gold bust of a stately, lovely woman with luxurious hair and uncanny, lifelike eyes.
</p><p>“Grace N. Seitz McCombs” reads the inscription under a statue. “My Love. My Life. My Inspiration.”
</p><p>A short distance away is a bench with another inscription: “Love at first sight.” “1954.”
</p>
Visitors need to know they stand on a shrine to the power of love. It’s that simple. Grace’s husband, Norman McCombs, commissioned Grace Plaza as a monument to romance, deliberately immersing it within the engineering school campus.
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<span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>