The Red Bird Sundial "Circle of Time" — HKUST's First Totem, Erected at the Entrance Piazza in 1991

In a nutshell: The "Circle of Time", known colloquially as the Red Bird Sundial, is an 8.5-metre steel sundial installed at the HKUST Entrance Piazza on 8 October 1991. Commissioned by the Hong Kong Jockey Club and created by the husband-and-wife team Walsh-Smith, its pedestal is inscribed with a bas-relief of 39 Chinese scientific and technological achievements from antiquity. It stands today as HKUST's foremost brand icon.

At a university with "Science and Technology" in its name, the first piece of public art erected at its entrance was not a robot or a microchip, but a red steel sundial paying homage to 39 ancient Chinese inventions. It is the totem HKUST staff and students print on postcards, anniversary logos, and 3D souvenirs, yet it is also an "ornament" from which almost no one can actually tell the time. Its official name is the "Circle of Time" and its brand name is the "Red Bird", but its most widespread name in Cantonese, for which no official source exists, is fo gai—"Turkey". This entry is a dedicated dossier on this single sculpture, unpacking its commission, creation, relief content, the gnomonics behind it, and its journey to becoming a brand icon. For a horizontal survey of the campus's other landmarks—the Armillary Sphere, Central Plaza, Shaw Auditorium, and various named buildings—see the separate Complete Record of Landmarks and Public Art.

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# Who commissioned this sundial, and when was it erected?

The "Circle of Time" Red Bird Sundial stands at the very centre of the Entrance Piazza on HKUST's Clear Water Bay campus. According to the official page of HKUST's Campus Management Office (CMO), the installation was funded and commissioned as a gift to the university by the Hong Kong Jockey Club^※. It was part of a package of donations from the Jockey Club during the campus's construction phase—a period when the Jockey Club Charities Trust's substantial funding was one of the key financial pillars that allowed the university to rise from the ground in Clear Water Bay. Among these, the sundial on the Entrance Piazza was the most conspicuous single "in-kind investment".

The moment of its installation is precisely documented: according to the CMO's official page, it was installed on 8 October 1991^※. This date is almost synchronous with the birth of HKUST itself. Public institutional history records that the university formally opened its doors in October 1991 and held its opening ceremony that same month^※. In other words, as the first cohort of students stepped onto a campus still bearing the feel of a construction site, this 8.5-metre red sundial was already there at the plaza's heart to greet them. It was not a decoration added later, but an original landmark "born" alongside the university. In the three decades since, despite multiple campus expansions and the rise of new buildings, it has remained in place; its symbolic status has never been supplanted by any new structure.

The institutional backdrop to the detail that "the commissioner was the Jockey Club" is worth noting. The Hong Kong Jockey Club (and its Charities Trust) has long been a major benefactor of local higher education and public infrastructure. In HKUST's greenfield construction in Clear Water Bay, Jockey Club donations were a foundational pillar of finance. This sundial on the Entrance Piazza is the most outward, concentrated "landmark-ification" of that philanthropy on campus—it congealed an abstract charitable grant into a piece of public art visible to all and passed by everyone every day. The "Red Bird" that would become so familiar to later generations of HKUST students and staff was, by origin, a gift from the Jockey Club.

For a young university only opening in 1991, the choice of its "first piece of public art at the entrance" was itself an act of self-definition. The university did not choose a futuristic, sci-fi image. Instead, it looked back across two millennia and placed "Chinese science and technology from antiquity" front and centre. This orientation is the interpretive key to the entire sculpture: it is not a statement about how new HKUST is, but about how long the broader Eastern scientific lineage it inherits truly is. The Entrance Piazza, by virtue of this sundial, gained a ceremonial weight—it is no longer merely a pedestrian thoroughfare, but the "face" of HKUST's self-introduction and the anchoring point of its community's collective memory.

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# Who made it? The Walsh-Smiths and their "Art plus Science" collaboration

The authors of the Red Bird Sundial are a husband-and-wife sculptor team. According to the CMO's official page, the creators are Charles Walsh-Smith and Joan Walsh-Smith^※, an Irish-born couple who settled in Perth, Western Australia. They launched their careers in Ireland, established their base in Australia, and have long undertaken major public sculpture commissions under their studio name, Smith Sculptors.

Joan Walsh-Smith's biography provides corroborating context. According to English Wikipedia, she was born in Ireland in 1946 and graduated from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin in 1971, where she met her future husband and creative partner, Charles Smith^※. Her first public commission can be traced back to a stone sculpture, Gryphon, completed in Waterford, Ireland, in 1972, and in 1974 she won a competition for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland with a 30-metre bas-relief, City People^※. This early experience foreshadowed her mastery of large-scale bas-relief narrative, the very skill extended in the 7-metre, 39-achievement relief on the HKUST pedestal. The couple moved to Western Australia in 1984 with their three children, founding their studio in Gidgegannup to specialise in large-scale public commissions^※.

After relocating to Australia, Smith Sculptors' portfolio centred on monuments and public sculptures. According to English Wikipedia, they were commissioned in 1988 to create the National Australian Army Memorial in Canberra and went on to complete over twenty memorial works across Australia, including the Pearl Diver Memorial in Broome^※. The best-known of these is the HMAS Sydney II Memorial in Geraldton, Western Australia, completed in 2001 to mark the 60th anniversary of its sinking^※. Joan Walsh-Smith herself has been awarded the Centenary Medal (2001), the Paul Harris Fellowship from Rotary International (2012), and the Medal of the Order of Australia (2024) for her contribution to the visual arts^※. Placed within this creative chronology, the "Circle of Time" is Smith Sculptors' most widely known representative work in Asia, and one of their early significant international commissions (1991, just seven years after their move to Australia). In a long career that later became renowned for war memorials, this red sundial in Hong Kong is a rare large piece themed around "science and time" rather than "war and memory".

The piece was not the whim of an artist working in isolation, but the product of a collaboration between "Art" and "Science". According to the project background page on the Smith Sculptors website, the work was commissioned after winning an International Art Competition, with materials noted as steel and concrete, and was completed in 1991^※. This means HKUST did not directly appoint an artist but selected the best through an open competition. For a fledgling university in urgent need of forging a visual identity, using an international competition rather than a private commission to select its first entrance artwork was itself a gesture of "opening up to the world".

Even more interesting is the line of division drawn between art and science. According to the same project page, the solar timekeeping scheme for the sundial was designed by gnomonist Margaret Folkard of Sundials Australia^※. Gnomonics is an ancient and exacting discipline: for a sundial to tell time accurately, its gnomon must be aligned with the celestial pole according to the local latitude, and the dial face calibrations must be calculated individually based on local longitude, latitude, and projective geometry. With Clear Water Bay located at a latitude of approximately 22 degrees north, these calculations were not something sculptors could accomplish by aesthetic sense alone. This gives the work a fascinating structure: the sculptors Walsh-Smith were responsible for "form" and "meaning"—the red bird shape, the flowing water metaphor, the relief narrative; the gnomonist Folkard was responsible for "accuracy"—ensuring the shadow cast by the steel structure could indeed correspond to the time. Artistic form and scientific function were welded together by two distinct sets of professional hands. This very "division of labour" is, fittingly, a precise expression of what the sculpture itself seeks to convey: utility and aesthetics were never separate pursuits.

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# The 39 scientific achievements of ancient China on the pedestal—what exactly is inscribed?

Beneath the main body of the sundial lies the most narratively dense part of the work. According to the CMO's official page, the side of the pedestal features a 7.0-metre-long, 1.5-metre-high bas-relief mural^※ (other sources state the total narrative length is approximately 9 metres), which records in carved form 39 Chinese scientific and technological achievements from various ancient fields. According to the official itemisation, these 39 inventions span from the 13th century BC (e.g., lacquerware, the abacus) all the way to the 13th century AD (e.g., the equator and astronomical instruments), traversing roughly twenty-six centuries of Eastern scientific history.

The 39 items are not randomly assembled but cover a wide spectrum, including agriculture, transport, navigation, astronomy, metallurgy, mechanics, printing, music, and philosophy. A rough categorisation by field is as follows:

The table above is a field-based summary for ease of reference; the complete list of 39 items and their respective dates should be verified against the original CMO website list^※.

Among these entries, several are deliberately captioned with modern scientific-historical terminology, making them especially thought-provoking to read. For example, the "South-pointing carriage" is labelled as the "First Cybernetic Machine"—the carriage used a differential gear mechanism so that a wooden figurine's arm would always point in a fixed direction, and the relief looks back at this 3rd-century machine through the lens of "cybernetics", a discipline only formalised in the 20th century. Similarly, the "escapement" is called the prototype for the "First Mechanical Clock", echoing the entire work's "time" motif. Entries such as "multi-stage rocket", "seismograph", "rudder", and "fore-and-aft rig" likewise draw military, geological, and maritime technologies of ancient China into this narrative of an "Eastern scientific river". By placing these inventions alongside a time-measuring sundial, the relief's message is not mere antiquarianism, but a claim of continuity—that the scientific spirit has existed since antiquity.

The most intriguing items on this list are those with a strong flavour of "transboundary interpretation"—entries that directly relabel ancient Chinese images or concepts using the vocabulary of modern science. The relief labels the "Yin Yang Symbol" as "Essence of Matter — Particle Wave Duality Theory," its "hexagonal structure of snowflakes" as the "Cosmic Scheme of Nature," and traditional Chinese medical observations of the body's rhythms as "Circadian Rhythms" and even "Science of Endocrinology." This kind of naming juxtaposes ancient empirical knowledge with the terms of 20th-century physics and physiology, going far beyond a mere "list of inventions". It is more akin to a manifesto: an assertion that a continuity of dialogue exists between ancient Eastern wisdom and modern science. Whether this interpretation holds up to academic rigour is open to debate, but as a founding statement by a university's signature sculpture, it clearly articulates the message intended by both the creators and the university administration: the "science and technology" of HKUST connects to a river that has been flowing since before the Common Era.

For a university with a strength in science and engineering, placing "ancient Eastern science" rather than "future technology" at its most prominent entrance point is a deliberate act of "using the past to illuminate the present". It responds to the sculptors' own vision that a work should be closely connected to its context, while also planting an Eastern cultural root for this international university, situated in Hong Kong but recruiting students globally.

Concerning the chronological span of this relief, the phrasing in different official and archival sources is not entirely consistent, warranting a touch of textual verification. Strictly following the individually listed dates for the 39 items in the official source, the earliest (e.g., lacquerware, abacus) are marked 13th century BC, and the latest (e.g., equator & astronomical instruments) are marked 13th century AD, giving a span of roughly twenty-six centuries. However, some official overview texts loosely describe the range as "from the 6th century BC to the 13th century AD" or even narrower. The discrepancy between these two accounts arises from the differing standard of whether to measure from the absolute earliest and latest individual items across the entire relief, or from the period in which the main body of entries is concentrated. This entry follows the dates given in the CMO's official, item-by-item list on its website^※, adopting the complete span of "approximately 13th century BC to 13th century AD." If readers encounter different figures elsewhere, it is mostly an issue of differing measurement criteria rather than factual contradiction.

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# Is it a sundial or a sculpture? Why does almost no one actually use it to tell time?

The official designation of the "Circle of Time" is a genuinely functioning sundial. According to the CMO's official page, the work is modelled on one of humanity's earliest scientific instruments, the sundial, using the sun's shadow to measure time^※. Its main body is made of steel and it stands on a stepped pedestal, surrounded by pools of flowing water. The flowing water and its stepped cascade are explicitly endowed with metaphor: according to the same page, the water symbolises the passage of time and the "flow of history", while the shadows cast by sunlight are the basis upon which this sundial is to be read.

In practice, however, it is almost a "sundial from which you cannot read the time". According to a campus location page curated by HKUST students, while the sundial is operational, it is extremely inconvenient for daily time-telling: it requires a sunny day, and one must go up to a higher floor and look down through an office window to clearly discern the hour indicated by the shadow^※. Viewed from the ground level of the plaza, both parallax and shadow proportions make reading difficult. This creates an almost ironic spectacle: an instrument born for "precise timekeeping" stands in the campus's most central location, yet almost no one actually relies on it to check the time.

Interestingly, the artists themselves were conscious of this "irony". According to records on the CMO's official page, the Walsh-Smiths' artist statement reads: they chose to create "a contemplative 'Circle of Time', an oasis within the bustling matrix of this vast complex of buildings"^※. In other words, from the start, what the creators wanted was not a convenient clock but a spiritual space where one is prompted to pause and contemplate time. The sundial's "impracticality" is, to some extent, part of the design intent—it asks you to look up at the sun, the flowing water, and the two-thousand-year-old relief, rather than down at your watch.

The creators also had a clear statement about the work's relationship with its environment. According to an artist statement recorded on Art@Site, the Walsh-Smiths believed the theme should be firmly 'in context' with its setting, and let light and shadow outline both the sundial and the relief together^※. This passage also explains why the 39 achievements are not arrayed chronologically but stream along the curve of the pedestal—the creators did not want a linear "timeline of technology", but a sense of history that flows in surges and cascades like memory itself, so that as the viewer circles the base, the inventions of the ancient East overlap and echo one another in the shifting light and shadow.

Between function and art, this piece refuses an either/or choice. It is simultaneously an actually functioning sundial-sculpture, and a sculptural sundial. It welds the "utility" of timekeeping and the "beauty" of contemplation into a single steel structure. This, fittingly, is precisely the message HKUST wishes to convey through it: an object's practicality need not be achieved at the expense of its artistry. Here, water, shadow, relief, and red steel together form an installation that "asks one to pause and think about time"—what it offers is not so much the hour and minute, as a meditation on "where time has flowed from, and where it flows to".

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# Where does the name "Red Bird" come from? And how did it become HKUST's premier brand icon?

The sundial has a more commonly circulated name: the Red Bird. This appellation has dual origins in its shape and colour. According to the official campus highlights page, this sundial sculpture, located at the piazza, has become an icon of HKUST^※. The steel structure is painted a vivid red, creating a strong visual contrast with the predominantly grey-and-white campus buildings. When viewed from the side, the steel arc at the sundial's centre traces a profile suggestive of wings spreading for flight. Because of its bird-like form and flame-like colour, the community took to calling it the "Red Bird".

In the official brand narrative, the "Red Bird" is further imbued with mythological significance. According to HKUST's Brand Guidelines, this red bird symbolises China's Feng-huang—an auspicious bird of myth imbued with spirituality—while also resonating with the Western mythological phoenix that is reborn from fire^※. The brand document states that the form "integrates technology and nature into a seamless whole, a direct personification of the university as an institution," with its minimalist lines simultaneously connecting the past and pointing to the future, while the red form is "immediately recognizable as a fire motif." Fenghuang, fire, soaring, rebirth—a whole set of symbols is layered onto this steel sundial, elevating it from a campus ornament into the university's spiritual totem.

From a "Jockey Club-commissioned public art piece" to the "university's premier brand icon," the Red Bird Sundial has undergone a process of successive institutionalisation:

The items in the table above, gathered from various official HKUST brand and campus materials, represent a classic case study of how a sculpture was systematically transformed into a university's visual identity. Over thirty-plus years, the Red Bird Sundial evolved from a steel installation at the centre of a piazza to the HKUST symbol printed on postcards, logos, souvenirs, and countless graduation photographs. It is no longer just "a sundial on campus," but a case where "seeing this Red Bird tells you it is HKUST."

With its elevation to totemic status, the "Red Bird" name has radiated across the campus, becoming a root word available for naming. Many student organisations and teams within the university adopt the "Red Bird" moniker, extending this visual identity into club culture. One point requiring clarification is that "Red Bird" and "Firebird" are often conflated in the HKUST context. However, according to campus records, there is no independent "Firebird" sculpture on the Clear Water Bay campus distinct from the Red Bird Sundial—the two names refer to the same entity, the "Circle of Time." There is a separate installation named the "Firebird" at the entrance of the HKUST Guangzhou campus (HKUST-GZ); this belongs to a different campus and should not be confused with the Clear Water Bay Red Bird Sundial. This clarification of "same nickname, different objects," along with a horizontal comparison of other campus landmarks, can be found in the Complete Record of Landmarks and Public Art.

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# Why do students call it the "Turkey"? Can you climb it?

If "Red Bird" is the name given by the authorities, then "Turkey" (fo gai) is the nickname coined by the students themselves. According to a campus location page curated by HKUST students, this sundial, officially named the "Circle of Time," is widely referred to within the campus community as fo gai—"Turkey"^※. Official documents offer no explanation for the precise origin of this Cantonese nickname. The common informal conjecture is that the sundial's sharp metal top piece, combined with its overall red form, reminded many people of the outline of a turkey—the same shape that an official reading interprets as a soaring phoenix, a student reading recasts as a bird destined for the dinner table. This gap between high and low register is itself a small footnote to campus culture. This explanation exists as unverified, orally transmitted student lore, recorded here pending further evidence, not to be taken as established fact. In sum, "Circle of Time" is the formal name, "Red Bird" is the brand nickname, and "Turkey" is the student pet name—three names corresponding to three perspectives: the administration sees time and the phoenix, the brand manual sees identity and heritage, and the students see a large red bird they pass every day and can casually tease.

Surrounding this sculpture is a rule that has been repeatedly restated: you may stand on it, but you may not climb it. According to the HKUST FYS campus location page, visitors are permitted to step onto the stepped pedestal for photographs, but climbing the main structure of the sundial is a violation of regulations^※. According to student oral accounts, despite this ban, graduating students or freshmen occasionally still climb to the highest tier of the pedestal for a commemorative photo. Such transgressions are said to be among the "standard attempts" of successive student cohorts, though they do not always meet with timely deterrence. For those wishing to examine the relief seriously, it is recommended to walk a slow circle around the pedestal—some scenes show their shadow details more sharply in the slanting midday sun, fitting neatly with the sculptors' intent to make light and shadow part of the narrative. Those truly intent on trying to read the time are advised by student experience that the best results come from peering down through a window on an upper floor on a sunny day. The Entrance Piazza sits at the heart of the main academic complex; it is open to the public year-round with no reservation or ticket required.

For the overwhelming majority of the HKUST community, the Red Bird Sundial's more practical identity is that of the "default meeting point" and the "default backdrop." According to HKUST FYS, it is situated at the Entrance Piazza and is an iconic campus landmark^※. For freshers' orientation, graduation, club recruitment stalls, or visiting friends, people arrange to meet "under the Turkey" and snap their shutters in front of this red bird. The sundial itself is silent, yet it receives and witnesses the most mundane gatherings and farewells of cohort after cohort—it translates the abstract theme of "time" back into a collection of photographs taken across different years but always against the same backdrop. In a sense, these photographs are what this sundial truly measures: not the hour or the minute, but those few years’ worth of light that stretches from matriculation to graduation for each generation.

A sundial that cannot accurately tell time, a nickname of "Turkey" with no traceable origin, a climbing ban repeatedly violated despite prohibition—these imperfect details, paradoxically, allow the Red Bird Sundial to grow back from a cold brand icon into a "thing of our own," something the community lives with daily and jests about among themselves. It is HKUST's first face to the outside world, and it is an inside password shared among the people of HKUST.

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# Quick Reference: Red Bird Sundial Key Facts

To situate this sundial within the broader landscape of campus landmarks (the Armillary Sphere, Central Plaza, Shaw Auditorium, various named buildings, etc.), consult the corresponding Complete Record of Landmarks and Public Art. This entry is focused exclusively on the "Circle of Time." To sum it up in one line: This is a steel sundial, funded by the Jockey Club, chosen through an international competition, completed jointly by sculptors and a gnomonist, and solemnly enshrined as a totem by a young university—it measures the sun's shadow, and it measures the span of time from the university's founding to the present day.

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