Propylaea is a sculpture/fountain on the Maumee River

Maumee River

The Maumee River is a river in northwestern Ohio and northeastern Indiana in the United States. It is formed at Fort Wayne, Indiana by the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Marys rivers, and meanders northeastwardly for through an agricultural region of glacial moraines before flowing into the...

, in downtown Toledo, Ohio

Toledo, Ohio

Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...

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About

In the early 1980s, Owens-Illinois

Owens-Illinois

Owens-Illinois Inc. is a Fortune 500 company that specializes in container glass products. It is one of the world's leading manufacturers of packaging products, holding the position of largest manufacturer of glass containers in North America, South America, Asia-Pacific and Europe...

 was building their new world headquarters at One SeaGate

One SeaGate

Fifth Third Center at One SeaGate is the tallest building in Toledo, Ohio. Until 2006, the building served as the world headquarters for Owens-Illinois. In 2007, Fifth Third Bank moved their Northwest Ohio headquarters to the building.- Building features :...

. As a gift to the city, the company commissioned Dimitri Hadzi to design a sculpture to stand as the centerpiece of the SeaGate complex. The sculpture is made from granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

, and is nestled as a fountain on a reflecting pond between One and Two SeaGate.

Dedication

Next to the sculpture there is a dedication which reads:

PROPYLAEA

1990-82

DIMITRI HADZI, SCULPTOR

AMERICAN B. 1921

THIS GRANITE SCULPTURE NAMED FROM THE GREEK WORD

FOR "GATEWAY," WAS COMMISSIONED BY OWENS-ILLINOIS TO STAND

AS A SYMBOLIC ENTRANCE TO SEAGATE AND A REVITALIZED TOLEDO.

HISTORICALLY, TOLEDO HAS BEEN A GATEWAY TO EXPLORATION, INVENTION

TRANSPORTATION AND INDUSTRY THAT HAS HELPED TO FORGE OUR NATION,

AND THE PROMISE OF ITS FUTURE IS TYPIFIED IN SEAGATE.