Athletic department officials will welcome the newest addition to the Jacobson Athletic Building’s public art collection today.

The work of art, worth about $54,000, is called “Light Projecting Helices.” It can be found in the north end of the building.

Artist Ray King, of Philadelphia, began reconstructing the project Saturday. He added the final touches Monday night.

This work of art is composed of squares of laminated glass suspended from stainless-steel cables. The cables are hung from the skylight structure at the north end of the weight room. The glass squares are of varying sizes and are stranded in a double-helix design.

The glass squares are blue and magenta and will reflect the light through the skylights onto the glass wall of the weight room, King said. The glass, he added, is dichroic, which means that it reflects one color and transmits another color. The colors change with the changing angles of the sun.

Stacy Brothers, of University Museums, said the structure will look “kind of like DNA,” and will reflect colored patterns throughout the weight room. The colors may also be visible from the exterior.

King said the idea for the hanging structure was “born of the architecture” of the building. Viewers of the art, he said, may find it difficult to tell exactly where the architecture ends and the art begins.

It was also important for King to design a structure that would be symbolic of the function of the building, he said. The “tension and compression” found in the stainless-steel cables work in a way similar to the “muscles in the body,” which explains its placement in the weight room.

“Light Projecting Helices” is part of the Art in State Buildings Program. This Iowa law mandates that 0.5 percent of new construction budgets be devoted to art in state building.