Roof

2004-2005

Andy Goldsworthy

Sculptor, British, born 1956

Andy Goldsworthy

We look down onto nine gray stone domes that melt into each other in the space of a patio enclosed with a pink marble wall opposite floor-to-ceiling windows. Each dome is nearly as tall as the ceiling over the windows, and each is made of stacked pieces of slate. At the top center of each dome is a collar of gray slate to create a pupil-like opening. The stone collar creating the openings is lighter gray around the ink-black centers, which are the shaded interiors of the domes. The domes meld and stack like a handful of bubbles.
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On View

East Building Ground Level, North Terrace

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    Buckingham Virginia slate

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 2255.7 x 4613.6 x 1310.2 cm (888 1/16 x 1816 3/8 x 515 13/16 in.)
    overall (approximate diameter of each dome): 823 cm (324 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2005.86.1

More About this Artwork

Video:  Ada Limón Shares Her Moving Poem Inspired by Andy Goldsworthy’s “Roof”

Ada Limón, 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, reads her poem "In the End, Everything Gives," inspired by Andy Goldsworthy’s sculpture Roof. 

Article:  Poet Ada Limón Responds to a Work by Andy Goldsworthy

The U.S. Poet Laureate responds to a circular set of sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Commissioned 7 May 2004 by NGA and begun November 2004; work completed 24 February 2005.

Associated Names

Bibliography

2013

  • Cigola, Francesca. Art Parks: A Tour of America’s Sculpture Parks and Gardens. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2013: 101.

2021

  • Sturman, Shelley, and Molly Donovan. "The Artist as Primary Source of the Conservation of Contemporary Sculpture." Facture: conservation, science, art history 5 (2021): 174-202, fig. 2.

Wikidata ID

Q63863449

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