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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 ...

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 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...

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...

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...

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."

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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.

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