3D shapes are fun, and Berkeley has a lot of them in the form of abstract sculptures. Thanks to a wonderful visit in Oxford and year of working with them as stimuli for computer vision (see 3D Shape Attributes with A. Zisserman and A. Gupta for the results), I've started appreciating them more.

From a vision perspective, the fun part is that they're 3D things you can walk around and they're typically forms you're not used to so you see less of your preconcieved notions. This lets you you walk around and see how what you see changes as what you see changes.

Here are a few of my favorites on campus (in no particular order), my not-so-good pictures of them, and what I like about them.

Pomodoro Sphere


Artist: Arnaldo Pomodoro
Location: West side of campus entrance near Oxford and Center Here

My two favorite things about this are probably:

Calder Hawk for Peace

Artist: Alexander Calder
Location: South side of campus, next to old museum Here

Pillar of Engineering

Artist: Carlo Sequin
Location: Sixth Floor, Sutardja Dai Hall Map

Enter at either 2nd, 3rd floor. Take the elevator to the 6th floor and head left until you hit a patio between buildings. It's on the side closest to the bay.