Andy Goldsworthy
Roof, 2004—2005

British artist Andy Goldsworthy and his team of dry-stone wallers constructed this sculpture here on the ground level of the East Building during the winter of 2004/2005. The concept of Roof stems in part from Goldsworthy's interest in Washington building stones and the quarries that supply them, as well as from his long-time engagement with a particular form–the dome. This form has shown up in Goldsworthy's work since the 1970s. What's clear too is his fascination with its recurrence in natural and manmade structures, from dome-shaped hills to neolithic burial chambers and even to the buildings that surround us today. What we have here are nine hollow domes of stacked slate, each about human height and twenty-seven feet in diameter. They are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the structures Goldsworthy makes from perishable materials–ice or leaves or snow. Yet for all its gravity and permanence, Roof has an almost fluid quality, even flowing into the building at two surprising moments.

Be sure to go up to the mezzanine to view the installation from another vantage point, and see the surprise Goldsworthy has in store for you. Walk just beyond Tony Smith's sculpture Die, toward the wall of windows. There you'll get a bird's-eye view of Roof, especially of the oculi, the velvety black openings at the top of each dome. This view offers the primary reason for Goldsworthy's domical structure–he knew that the northern orientation of the site would produce perfectly black holes. From that perspective, Roof looks like whirlpools at the top of an eddy, and we're almost willing to believe that Goldsworthy is an alchemist, having turned 550 tons of slate into water.