Archinect - News

Inside the creation and demise of the Temple of Together at Burning Man 2024

2024-09-11T07:00:00-04:00

With Burning Man 2024 concluded, organizers have shared imagery depicting the building, use, and ultimate demise of the event’s main temple. Designed by Caroline “Glitter Kitty” Ghosn, the Temple of Together was inspired by Lebanese Khaizaran chairs and the artist’s own decades-long battle with multi-generational trauma and illness.

Image credit: Rand Larson

The design of the temple seeks to portray “the light that emerges when we come together with all parts of ourselves and with the oneness we share with all living things.” The leading motif of the temple is the representation of two hands coming together in prayer, symbolizing a common gesture of unity, humility, and respect to almost all spiritual traditions.

Image credit: Rand Larson

The gesture of unity is depicted literally by the two hands creating the temple’s entrance archway, but also in a more abstract sense through neo-Gothic pointed arches repeated throughout the design, ...

Burning Man unveils first-ever Black Rock City Temple design from female BIPOC lead artist

2024-02-13T12:34:00-05:00

Burning Man’s official 2024 Temple for Black Rock City has been unveiled as an optimistic design rising to a height of 70 feet and shrowded in a woven latticed screen cladding with repeated neo-Gothic archways that carry a metaphor of togetherness amidst a backdrop of global conflict.

The design took its charge from notable past iterations from David Best and will be called 'Temple of Together' as denoted by its repeated motif of hands touching in unison. Burner Caroline “Glitter Kitty” Ghosn was the Lead Artist chosen for her design, which is inspired by Lebanese Khaizaran chairs and her battle with multi-generational trauma and illness.

Temple of Together by Caroline Ghosn. Design rendering by Maissa Sader

Organizers say: “We look for a design that is novel, yet still fits within the Burning Man Temple tradition of being a treasured sanctuary ...

MIT Media Lab group unveils Living Knitwork Pavilion at Burning Man 2023

2023-09-14T11:42:00-04:00

A group of designers, artists, and technologists from MIT have unveiled details of a pavilion delivered by the team for Burning Man 2023. The Living Knitwork Pavilion is described by the group as “an architectural-scale interactive 3D knitted textile shade structure that leverages electrically and optically-active yarns and explores photochromism by day and light-movements interaction at night.”

Image credit: Irmandy Wicaksono/MIT Media Lab

The modular pavilion comprises a dodecagonal pyramid, measuring 18 feet in height and 26 feet in width. Crafted from 3D knitted yarns that are both optically and electrically active, the pavilion senses movements and changes its color and luminescence in response, creating a unique optic experience across the day and night.

Image credit: Irmandy Wicaksono/MIT Media Lab

The pavilion is formed of twelve petals, each embedded with functional yarns. The yarns can ...

Burning Man reveals first physical temple design post-Covid

2023-02-02T12:52:00-05:00

The annual temple design to feature in this year’s Burning Man festival has been announced: The "Temple of the Heart" concept is designed by Polish-born, San Francisco-based entrepreneur Ela Madej with the help of her co-lead Reed Finlay and will be the festival’s first physical temple since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic three years ago.

In a blog post, Burning Man's creative team said: "Selecting the Temple for Black Rock City is a uniquely challenging decision. We look for a design with a strong visual impact that can serve as a meaningful space to hold the full range of our community’s experiences and offerings. There are both conceptual and practical considerations. Is the Temple creative and beautiful enough to be an artwork in and of itself but simple enough that it doesn’t get in the way or dictate an experience? Will it burn well, and safely? Have the applicants planned for LNT, and considered sustainability in their design and execution?"

A sketch of the temple courtes...

Burning Man plans a permanent, sustainable location, with a design team from MIT leading the vision

2021-03-09T12:45:00-05:00

The Land Art Generator Initiative collaborated with the Burning Man project to develop a design challenge that invites creative proposals for regenerative projects for Fly Ranch, an off-the-grid ranch in the Great Basin.

The competition brief asked for designers, creatives, and inventors to "integrate sustainable systems for energy, water, food, shelter, and waste management into works of art in the landscape. The objective is to build the foundational infrastructure for Fly Ranch, support Burning Man Project's 2030 sustainability goals, engage a global audience to work together towards systemic transformation, and serve as an inspiration for the developing field of regenerative design."

From regenerative venues, spaces for habitation to energy infrastructure, the design competition received nearly 200 design proposals. Out of those submissions, ten were selected as top proposals for the LAGI 2020 Fly Ranch Design Challenge. "Art and creativity are the connective strings that weave...

Burning Man 2020 goes virtual with "The Multiverse"

2020-04-11T14:47:00-04:00

After much listening, discussion, and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision not to build Black Rock City in 2020. Given the painful reality of COVID-19, one of the greatest global challenges of our lifetimes, we believe this is the right thing to do.

Burning Man is the latest physical event casualty resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The event organizers announced that they will be canceling the physical build-out of Black Rock City this year, for the safety of the participants and community, and will be building the city virtually, under the existing theme of "The Multiverse."

Burning Man 2020: The Multiverse

While the organizers have admitted to not knowing exactly what this virtual replacement will look and feel like, they are committed to working with the community to build something "engaging, connective, and fun." They have also announced that they will be issuing refunds to everyone who has already purchased tickets, while asking those that can afford to do so to consider donating all or a portion of the ticket price to the Burning Man Project.

Bjarke Ingels's giant mirrored Orb rises at Burning Man 2018. Photo taken by BIG partner Kai-Uwe Bergmann.

Each year designers and builders from around the world come toge...

October 31 deadline set for LAGI 2020 Fly Ranch competition

2020-04-10T16:30:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Land Art Generator Initiative

The Land Art Generator Initiative and Burning Man Project have partnered to launch a multi-disciplinary design challenge—LAGI 2020 Fly Ranch—that will create the foundational infrastructure of Fly Ranch.

You are invited to propose your regenerative artwork in this stunning landscape. In 2021 selected design teams will be provided an honoraria grant for the purpose of building a functional prototype on site.

*Land Art Generator Directors Elizabeth Monoian & Robert Ferry address the community with updates and motivation.

Thank you to the 161 people who responded to the survey we sent two weeks ago. Many of you wrote to us in the comments section with personal stories of how your lives have been affected by the novel coronavirus. While some of you (about 16%) were in favor of maintaining the May 31 submission deadline for LAGI 2020 Fly Ranch , most of you told stories of why more time would be beneficial—some who are either t...

Burning Man's 2020 temple is inspired by medieval cosmology

2020-01-21T11:07:00-05:00

Burning Man has selected its 2020 Temple. It's called Empyrean and was developed by Colorado-based builder, architect, and sculptor Laurence "Renzo" Verbeck and Sylvia Adrienne Lisse, a veteran in large-scale and interactive art projects. The title of the temple comes from medieval cosmology. According to the Burning Man Journal, "'Empyrean" represents the highest celestial point, the apex where humanity can touch the cosmic dimensions. This apex was believed to be the birthplace of fire.

Image via Burning Man Journal

The temple's geometry manifests as an eight-pointed star. It stands 70 feet high and 200 feet in diameter. The structure provides multiple points of entry, promoting fluid circulation during the festival. Wooden panels encase each spoke of the star, changing in appearance through dynamic patterns and shapes. As sunlight enters the space, shifting throughout the course of a day, the transforming aura within this desert sanctuary is sure to provide a memorable experience ...

Fernando Romero Enterprise reveals concept for Burning Man temple

2020-01-17T18:12:00-05:00

Mexico City and New York-based Fernando Romero Enterprise (FR-EE) has unveiled their proposal for this year's Burning Man Temple. Each year, the event invites a team of architects, artists, and designers to create a temple proposal where Burners (Burning Man participants) can gather.

Interior view.

Aerial view.

FR-EE's concept is inspired by the Ancient Greek word holon, which refers to an object that is both complete unto itself and an integral part of a larger whole. Taking the form of a wooden ellipsoid, the larger inhabitable temple houses an identically smaller version of itself within that serves as an altar. Within the altar still lies an even smaller replica of this ellipsoidal form, a nested array of artifacts, each complimenting the other.

The temple's construction consists of a wooden truss system, devised by FR-EE to achieve its organic form. Each truss bows outward and is braced by 34 circular horizontal members, representing the 34 years of Burning Man's existence. A com...

Is "Burning Man urbanization" a useful planning model?

2019-09-09T20:00:00-04:00

Most of the structure that has been added since [Burning Man's 1996 revival] feels invisible to the people who come: the streets that are surveyed to be exactly 40 feet wide, the plazas that steer people together without crowding them, the 430 fire extinguishers around town, each tracked by its own QR code. The goal now, one planner explained to Mr. Romer, is to make Black Rock City just safe enough that people can joke about dying without actually dying.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer and The New York Times writer Emily Badger explore the urban economics of Burning Man's Black Rock City while envisioning the potential relevance of the instant-city planning model amid massive, worldwide urbanization.

A look at the must-see structures of Burning Man 2019

2019-08-29T20:55:00-04:00

Images from this year's Burning Man have emerged!

According to the Burning Man official website, "Burning Man is not a festival! It's a city wherein almost everything that happens is created entirely by its citizens, who are active participants in the experience."

Whether you plan on experiencing the festival for yourself, or just here for the eye candy, see below for some of the most notable sculptures and installation pieces from Burning Man 2019.

View this post on Instagram The temple is absolutely stunning this year... #Brutalism #BurningMan #Pixel3XL #NightSight #nofilter
A post shared by Myriam Joire (@tnkgrl) on Aug 29, 2019 at 3:42pm PDT
View this post on Instagram Your greatest Breakthrough is only found once you push past your deepest moments of challenge. Building the Pulse Portal with a broken foot for a week in the desert was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣I lost my crew and friends, I found ...

Could this be the political/architectural diagram we have been waiting for?

2019-03-27T13:56:00-04:00

Can the relationship between architecture and politics ever be summarized by a well-organized diagram? San Francisco based writer Julia Galef recently offered a proposal on Twitter for distinguishing the four main political groups by their architectural preferences in a familiar format in the social media universe.

It recalls the drawings made by architect Leon Krier, who often preferred images over lengthy texts as a means of communicating architectural styles against their political intentions.

Plans for Burning Man's 2019 Japanese-inspired Temple design are revealed

2018-12-26T14:35:00-05:00

As the year comes to a close, the Burning Man Arts festival, one of the biggest events of the year, is already preparing for 2019. Designs for the temple, which is central to the black rock city experience, have been revealed.

Picked from a host of submissions for its "elegant simplicity", the 2019 Temple will feature a design inspired by the torii gates at the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Japan, where the artist, Geordie Van Der Bosch, previously lived.

Photo via Burning Man.

The temple will consist of a series of wooden archways that form a linear passageway leading to a large central hall. An altar and shelves to place offerings will help set the stage for festival-goes to have a collective and spiritual experience.

The design elicits "both a physical experience and a metaphorical journey," said the organizers in a statement on the design. "It’s a space that responds to the openness of the playa by creating a framework that encourages you to travel from end to end," they added.

Phot...

A look at the incredible structures of Burning Man 2018

2018-09-05T14:57:00-04:00

While Bjarke Ingels's 30-ton Orb installation–described by some as a giant disco ball—has transfixed many of the festival goers at Burning Man this year, the annual festival saw a slew of spectacular artworks worth checking out. Adhering to the theme of I, Robot, the playa was transformed by larger-than-life works that helped create a unique event for the more than 70,000 visitors descending on Black Rock City. From a massive, spiraling wooden temple to a memorial celebrating Burning Man's co-founder Larry Harvey, who passed away earlier this year, here is a selection of the art of Burning Man 2018.

Bjarke Ingels's giant mirrored Orb rises at Burning Man

2018-08-29T18:31:00-04:00

Now a global phenomenon, the annual Burning Man festival's biggest allure is the site's complete transformation into a temporary city filled with installations and large-scale constructions that are burned at the end of the week-long event.

Grabbing media attention every year, one of 2018's most anticipated structures has been Bjarke Ingels' pet project—a massive reflective ball hovering above the playa. Together with fellow BIG partner Jakob Lange, the two set up an Indiegogo campaign back in July to raise the last leg of funding for the installation.

Asking $50,000 to help with materials and construction, the campaign is still live as the pair have yet to meet the total goal. Despite not reaching it, however, the Orb still managed to make it to Burning Man this year. Kicking off over the weekend with thousands of burners descending upon Black Rock City, the large metallic sphere has successfully risen above the arid desert. Below, you can see the progress shots of its constructi...

Bjarke Ingels is crowdsourcing funds to bring a giant mirrored orb to Burning Man

2018-07-05T12:49:00-04:00

Bjarke Ingels, along with fellow BIG partner Jakob Lange, are heading to Burning Man this summer with the ORB, a giant reflective ball installation scaled to 1/500,000 of the earth’s surface. With a diameter of nearly 100 ft, the ORB will hover above The Playa, reflecting everything around it. According to Ingels, the idea behind the project is to "turn public life into public artifact."

With the festival just under two months away, the ORB is nearly complete. Carried out by the BIG Ideas project unit, they have funded the majority needed for 30 tons of steel and 1000 hours of welding of the structure as well as 1500 sewing hours. But, to raise the last $50,000 USD for the project, the team has launched an Indiegogo campaign. In exchange for support, donors can receive a range of perks, including postcards, posters, an engraved mini, steel version of the ORB, and come Burning Man, a private visit inside.

Russian artist burns Gothic cathedral made of sticks at Maslenitsa carnival

2018-02-19T18:44:00-05:00

A 30m-tall Gothic cathedral built of branches and twigs that was set alight on Saturday (17 February) causing controversy in Russia. The burning took place at Nikola-Lenivets, a rural artists’ colony 200km south of Moscow, and was the culmination of pre-Lenten carnival festivities known as Maslenitsa. The event is often likened to the US Burning Man festival.

Artist Nikolay Polissky, founder of Nikola-Lenivets, creates impressive land art installations to burn for Russia's Maslenitsa festival each year. This Russian folk tradition is celebrated during the last week before Lent and traditionally ends with the burning of a scarecrow.

This year, the festival's title was Flaming Gothic, which is the literal Russian translation of the ornate architecture style. Although it was in line with the theme of the festival, Polissky's cathedral sparked controversy after the images and videos of it burning went viral. Some claimed it was an attack on Christianity and Russian Orthodoxy, while others asserted this played into Russian nationalist propaganda.

Flaming Gothic installation by Nikolay Polissky at Maslenitsa 2018 festival. Image: Andrei Nikerichev.

Far from his intentions, Polissky explains, “There was nothing of religious worship in my art object, of course there were no crosses, altar or any religious symbols. This is not a copy of any exis...

Burning Man reveals 2018 Temple design: Galaxia

2018-01-04T17:25:00-05:00

Galaxia celebrates hope in the unknown, stars, planets, black holes, the movement uniting us in swirling galaxies of dreams. A superior form of Gaia in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Galaxia is the ultimate network, the fabric of the universe connecting living beings into one entity.

Rejoice burners — the design for the 2018 Temple has been unveiled: 'Galaxia' by London-based French architect Arthur Mamou-Mani.

"Galaxia is shaped of 20 timber trusses converging as a spiral towards one point in the sky," describes the Burning Man Journal. "The triangular trusses form different paths towards a central space holding a giant 3D printed mandala, the heart of Galaxia. The timber modules start large enough to hold small alcoves in which people can write in peace. As participants walk through the path, the timber modules lift up and become thinner and thinner towards the sky as people reach the central mandala."

Mamou-Mani is no stranger to Burning Man: he and his MArch students at the University of Westminster's WeWantToLearn studio (taught jointly with with Toby Burgess) have been contributing art installations to the annual event site, Black Rock City in the Nevada desert, for the past six years: Shipwreck, Fractal Cult, Hayam Sun Temple, The Infinity Tree, Reflectio...

French architect will use robotic tools to build 2018 Burning Man Temple

2017-12-28T16:22:00-05:00

Mamou-Mani, the French architect chosen to build the 2018 Burning Man Temple, believes that robots can only further the possibilities in his field, and he plans to enlist the help of a number of robotic tools this year in creating Burning Man's most sacred structure.

Burning Man is known for its over-the-top installations and structures that pop up in the middle of the the Nevada desert for a week, one of the most important being the Burning Man Temple. Next year, the temporary structure will be built by the French architect Mamou-Mani along with the help of students at the University of Westminster where he teaches. In addition, Mamou-Mani has discussed plans on enlisting the help of robotic tools as well.

The urban planning of Burning Man

2017-08-30T16:55:00-04:00

In a moment when the powers at be can't even fund the country’s shambling roads and bridges, the 2,000 organizers and volunteers who run Burning Man put together—and then take apart—a 70,000-person city in the space of two months.

As Burning Man is taking it's 31st annual round, Wired takes a look at how the famed festival occupies the land of the Black Rock Desert. While temporary and free of the bounding presence of permanent residents and buildings, it nevertheless bares some resemblance to a city. Springing out of nothing-ness with no need for professional builders, the settlement still conforms to some rules—the Bureau of Land Management has had a firm hand in guiding Burning Man since the mid 90's, imposing the basic half-moon grid layout, developing plans to deal with sanitation, emergency services, security, camping, traffic, parking, water, food supplies, communication, lasers, and fire. In the event of bad weather or 'social' unrest the Bureau will step in again.

Image via commons.wikimedia.org

Black Rock City has essentially built up its own bureaucracy—the Nevada Department of Transportation helps the 70,000 attendees get in and out of the site and the Department of Public Works paints, welds, re-...

Revisiting the urban plan of Burning Man

2016-08-30T14:41:00-04:00

When a group of Burners describing themselves as the Black Rock City Ministry of Urban Planning announced a design competition last fall for a new urban plan for Burning Man, Phil Walker had never given the matter much thought. “I’m actually not a Burner. I’ve never done it,” says Walker, the senior associate vice president for CallisonRTKL, an architecture firm and design consultancy. “Maybe a bit of vicarious living for a middle-aged suburban dad is what appealed to me.”

"So Walker didn’t set about to change the orientation of Black Rock City [...] instead, he built out a “kit of parts” for simple streetscape interventions that he says can have a dramatic impact on urban flow and cultural space."

Related Burning Man stories in the Archinect news:

Latest University of Westminster Burning Man studio project needs a Kickstart

2016-05-11T14:32:00-04:00

For the past several years, tutors Arthur Mamou-Mani and Toby Burgess' University of Westminster design studio DS10 has helped students develop installation designs for Burning Man, many of which have gone on to be realized on the festival's grounds. This year, the parametrically-inspired, purposefully all-caps-titled design "PURSUIT" by fifth-year student Joshua Potter is hoping to be among those projects that make it to Black Rock City, thanks in part to his Kickstarter.

Potter used an arrowhead as his conceptual starting point, gradually deriving the six principal tower-like timber members of the structure's geometry through a mathematical process known as Pursuit Curvature.

Described by Potter as "an interactive art installation that celebrates humanity's ongoing quest for Peace, Freedom and Joy - in Life, Love and Art" the project has about another $22K to raise by May 16th.

In which the merits and disappointments of Burning Man are discussed with some fervor:

Gentrification of Bu...

In honor of Guy Fawkes Day, check out these semi-regular communal fires

2015-11-05T13:42:00-05:00

November 5th marks the celebration of Guy Fawkes day in the U.K., in which bonfires are lit to celebrate the capture of the titular royal traitor and the subsequent preservation of the life of King James I in 1605.

Of course, lighting things on fire to commemorate dates isn't limited to the Brits: every October 30th, Detroit, Michigan braces for "Devil's Night," where structures are randomly torched by vandals and other assorted ne'er-do-wells. The night originally had gentler, more mischevious overtones when it began in the 1930s, but reached a dangerous zenith in the 1980s. By 1995, the mayor of Detroit launched "Angel's Night" to combat the fires, although acts of arson still occur.

And then there's Burning Man, the annual desert concert/DIY/pop-up village held at the tail end of August in Nevada in which giant artworks (and many of the attendees) get toasted.

Your annual reminder that Burning Man isn't that special of an idea

2015-08-28T15:17:00-04:00

While Burning Man really is a one-of-a-kind, temporary event, there are communities full of similarly minded radical folk across the globe.

Burners 'round the globe will soon make the pilgrimage to Black Rock City, a "temporary metropolis dedicated to art and community" in Nevada's desert. The psychedelic social experiment born of "radical self-reliance" known as Burning Man begins this Sunday, and in its nearly 30-year history has attracted legions of loyalists, while also being criticized for a radicalism compromised by expensive ticket prices and a "buddy-buddy relationship with Silicon Valley billionaires"*.

By its nature, Black Rock City disappears when Burning Man ends – but many similarly radical communities around the world are being built to last. Sure, no giant effigies, but often, infrastructure!

This piece from ajc.com looks at some of the other experiments in communal living from around the world – from ecovillage Findhorn Foundation in Scotland to Copenhagen's autonomous Christiana and even autonomous micronations like the Principality of Sealand.

More news from The Burn:

300-mile wall "proposed" for the Bay A...

300-mile wall "proposed" for the Bay Area to exile Burning Man festivalgoers, forever

2015-08-07T18:26:00-04:00

Comedy troupe Cultivated Wit takes a humorous jab at megaprojects, outlandish crowdsourcing, and how much San Franciscans loathe Burning Man in a cheeky mock campaign that would support the construction of a 300-mile wall around the Bay Area to keep Burners out, forever. And all at a reasonable cost of $7 billion. Set up like a Kickstarter page, Cultivated Wit's MegaGoGo — "the funding platform for large-scale infrastructure"— is complete with those much-needed backer rewards and a satirical campaign video.

The host of the campaign video details the world-changing benefits of a Burner-wall: "We can make a whole new way of life, as long as we just adhere to a couple principles, like inclusion. If this project is anything, it's about bringing people together — together to lock people out...We've got to be mindful of the environment. That's why we can't leave a single trace, aside from the giant wall."

You can check out the entire video below.

h/t sfist.com

Gentrification of Burning Man

2014-08-21T00:19:00-04:00

“Anyone who has been going to Burning Man for the last five years is now seeing things on a level of expense or flash that didn't exist before,” said Brian Doherty, author of the book “This Is Burning Man.” “It does have this feeling that, ‘Oh, look, the rich people have moved into my neighborhood.’ It’s gentrifying.”

"By the way, there are over 62 million Burning Man results in the Google search but who can guarantee they all originate from Nevada desert? After all, men and women burn daily all over the world. Right?" - from Burning Man, a new religion?

Editor's Picks #337

2013-10-14T23:46:00-04:00

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, Editorial Manager for Archinect, traveled to Aedes Network Campus Berlin as a fly-on-the-wall, and reported back with 7 Lessons from the 3rd International Architectural Education Summit. These were; 1) The relevancy of the “Architect” is fleeting, 2) Kids today don’t know a thing about radicalism, 3) The powers that be are male, and architecture is a gender-divisive practice, 4) Architects need to be “strategically naive”, 5) Architectural authority is not above democratic authority (?), 6) Form before finances and lastly 7) The student has become the master (at least regarding computers).

In response Thayer-D opined "The main problem with architectural education isn't the lack of branding or radicalism, or even male dominated pedagogy (although that does suck). It's the lack of faith that tackling the myriad of issues associated with any given project will result in the most compelling and present project possible, regardless of one's aesthetic proclivi...

Rod Garrett, the Urban Planner Behind ‘Burning Man’, dead at 74

2011-08-29T15:53:01-04:00

Mr. Garrett died last week at 74, just short of the 25th anniversary of Burning Man’s founding. But his handiwork will be on display to thousands as the yearly festival begins Monday. Mr. Garrett arranged the grounds, called Black Rock City, in a series of concentric semicircles. At their center is the Man, a giant effigy meant to be immolated on the last night of the weeklong gathering.

Burned Out Burning Man? [satire]

2011-07-26T14:40:46-04:00

It’s just hard after all the years of hearing the snickers that Burning Man has become too commercial, or that it jumped the shark, only to see it actually happen.We had a good run though, didn’t we? Even the Dead had to quit at some point.”

San Francisco, CA –Larry Harvey, the man who pioneered Burning Man, the famous counter culture music and arts festival founded in San Francisco in 1986, which later moved to the desert north of Reno, Nevada, announced that 2011 is its final year.

Previously in elseplace