MIT, like many institutions, has questionable taste in its
public art. Most of the sculptures you'll find around campus are made of
black scrap metal welded together in one form or another, with the occaisional peculiar stone structure thrown in. Of all of these, only
the Great Sail in front of the
Green Building can really be considered a public service.
To make matters even more interesting, MIT established a program a few decades ago called 1% for Art, under which one percent of all construction and renovation budgets would be spent on art to beautify the campus. This has led to a string of (usually) overpriced sculptures and mosaics, and several rather terrifying near-misses.
MIT students are hardly inclined to simply ignore the bad taste surrounding them, and there are several stories of how hackers dealt with the local decorations. Some pieces of art with associated tales are: