Andy Goldsworthy’s roof is located in the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC). It was installed over nine weeks in 2004, he used Buckingham Virginia slate quarried near Washington DC. Because this piece of work was so big and difficult to make Goldsworthy got a team of workers to help turn his idea into a reality.
The sculpture is made of 9 stacked-slate, hollow domes each measuring around five and a half feet tall and twenty-seven feet in diameter. This artwork uses many of the same materials as he does in his other artworks like stone (Stone house, 3 crowns, Hanging tree etc.), holes (Bird’s nest, Japanese maple leaves, Stone circle grey etc.) and the delicate balance of a dome or arch (Striding arches, Ice arch, Touching north).
Roof portrays the curved structure that alludes the history of stonework, the materials also reference the architecture of Washington DC. Goldsworthy describes the holes in the top of the domes as “a visual entrance into the earth...into the stone. An entrance between which life both ebbs and flows… a sense of being drawn into the depth, the distance”.
Roof wasn’t inspired by anything that happened at the time and instead was inspired by the immediate surroundings of Central Park and its architectural setting as well as the architectural surroundings of Washington DC.
Goldsworthy’s Roof is a very interesting and unique idea but it is very pleasing to the eyes. I think that all the effort he and his team put in shows through how well structured and thought out the artwork really is.
The sculpture is made of 9 stacked-slate, hollow domes each measuring around five and a half feet tall and twenty-seven feet in diameter. This artwork uses many of the same materials as he does in his other artworks like stone (Stone house, 3 crowns, Hanging tree etc.), holes (Bird’s nest, Japanese maple leaves, Stone circle grey etc.) and the delicate balance of a dome or arch (Striding arches, Ice arch, Touching north).
Roof portrays the curved structure that alludes the history of stonework, the materials also reference the architecture of Washington DC. Goldsworthy describes the holes in the top of the domes as “a visual entrance into the earth...into the stone. An entrance between which life both ebbs and flows… a sense of being drawn into the depth, the distance”.
Roof wasn’t inspired by anything that happened at the time and instead was inspired by the immediate surroundings of Central Park and its architectural setting as well as the architectural surroundings of Washington DC.
Goldsworthy’s Roof is a very interesting and unique idea but it is very pleasing to the eyes. I think that all the effort he and his team put in shows through how well structured and thought out the artwork really is.