Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt

1973-76 | Great Basin Desert, Utah

In a remote valley of Utah’s Great Basin Desert, Holt’s massive ​Sun Tunnels ​looms along the horizon, visible from over a mile away. The four concrete structures are arranged in a cross formation, positioned precisely to frame the sun as it rises and sets during the summer and winter solstices. Small holes are configured in the concrete to cast projections of constellations along the tunnels’ interior; Draco, Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn materialize out of sunlight, their patterns illuminated upon the viewer inside. With ​Sun Tunnels, ​Holt brings the cosmos down to the earth and into the realm of human experience.

“I wanted to bring the vast space of the desert back to human scale.”

-Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels (1977)