Campus Icons — Tree of Wisdom

A gift of light, made personal

Frank J. Nackos created BYU’s Tree of Wisdom for the university’s 1975 centennial. Its layered planes let light pass between them, casting shifting shadows as you move around it. The packaging tells its story through roots grounded in knowledge and branches reaching outward.

For BYU’s 150th anniversary, my father, Nathan Diehl, and I designed a 1:40 wooden miniature. I wanted to turn a familiar campus landmark into a memory someone could build, hold, and keep—and share the artist’s story with another generation.

The 13-piece laser-cut kit and packaging bring that purpose together. Assemble it, place it in sunlight, and turn it slowly: the changing light and perspective become part of the experience. This is one of the first Campus Icons prototypes, a project about preserving meaningful campus places and their stories.