In the northeast corner of campus, Constantin Meunier’s sculpture Le Marteleur greets visitors in front of the home of the engineering school. Le Marteleur or the Hammerman was a gift of the Class of 1889 of the School of Mines (now the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science) installed all the way back in 1914. But did you know that the statue has moved multiple times over the years? And not always easily or willingly.
In 1914, Constantin Meunier was having a moment at Columbia. A traveling exhibition of Meunier’s works, featuring 70 paintings and 87 pieces of statuary, came to Avery Library before heading to the Detroit Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition proved extremely popular. For two and half weeks (January 26 to February 15), Avery was open from 9:00 am to 11:00 pm, Monday to Saturday, and again on Sundays, from 2:00 to 6:00 pm. Just in the first five days, more than 8,000 visitors came in and, at the end of the show, almost 27,000 visitors had come to see the Belgian sculptor’s works.
During the exhibition at Avery, members of the School of Mines Class of 1889 selected one of Meunier’s works to be their class gift marking their 25th anniversary. Le Marteleur, or the Hammerman, was completed in 1884 and shown at the Paris Salon in 1886, where it received an honorable mention. (Although the piece is called Le Marteleur, the metalworker is not holding on to a hammer, but rather a set of pincers. He is technically a pincersman.) The statue was installed in front of the School of Mines building in June 1914.
In 1961, the School of Engineering moved to its new home, the Engineering Center (now Seely W. Mudd Hall). The School of Mines building became Lewisohn Hall, the home of the School of General Studies; and the School of Engineering building became Mathematics Hall. Unfortunately, the Hammerman was not part of the move. He was left behind, guarding Lewisohn.
A few years after the move to the new Engineering Center, the engineering students asked to be reunited with their Hammerman or school mascot. The Buildings and Grounds workmen set out to remove the statue from its base in March 1966, but their first attempt failed. The Hammerman remained stubbornly attached. As the Spectator reported, “the weathered bronze statue has resisted attempts to lift it from what has been its resting place since 1914.” In December 1966, with a new strategy in place, the workmen tried again to relocate the Hammerman. This time, they decided to move the sculpture and its base as a single unit. In their second attempt, they were successful. The Hammerman (base and all) were uprooted and moved to the Engineering Terrace. But that would not be his final move.
In 1982, for the construction of the Computer Science building, the Hammerman had to again be moved. This time, the staff was familiar with the statue’s attachment issues and the Hammerman (on its base) was placed on the forklift and driven around the length of the (no longer in place) Engineering Terrace.
Although this was supposed to be a short-term removal due to the ongoing work, the Hammerman enjoyed a few years in the shade. It wasn’t until 1991 when he was moved for a third time, just a short distance of about 150 feet north to its current location. Only this time, the Hammerman got an extra lift, literally. He is now placed on his own raised garden bed, where he hopes to stay for at least another 50 years.
