Viewing page 2 of 7

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[Image: photo of tunnels built on desert]]

Sun Tunnels

Sun Tunnels (1973—76) is built on 40 acres which I bought in  1974 specifically as a site for the work. The land is in the Great Basin Desert in northwestern Utah, about 4 miles southeast of Lucin (pop. 10) and 9 miles east of the Nevada border. 

Sun Tunnels marks the yearly extreme positions of the sun on the horizon—the tunnels being aligned with the angles of the rising and the setting of the sun on the days of the solstices, around June 21st and December 21st. On those days the sun is centered through the tunnels, and is nearly centered for about 10 days before and after the solstices. 

The four concrete tunnels are laid out on the desert in an open X configuration 86 ft. long on the diagonal. Each tunnel is 18 ft. long, and has an outside diameter of 9 ft. 2 1/2 in. and an inside diameter of 8 ft. with a wall thickness of 7 1/4 in. A rectangle drawn around the outside of the tunnels would measure 66 1/2 ft. x 53 ft.

Cut through the wall in the upper half of each tunnel are holes of four different sizes-7, 8, 9, and 10 in. in diameter. Each tunnel has a different configuration of holes corresponding to stars in four different constellations - Draco, Perseus, Columba, and Capricorn. The sizes of the holes vary relative to the magnitude of the stars to which they correspond. During the day, the sun shines through the holes, casting a changing pattern of pointed ellipses and circles of light on the bottom half of each tunnel. On nights when the moon is more than a quarter full, moonlight shines through the holes casting its own paler pattern. The shapes and positions of the cast light differ from hour to hour, day to day, and season to season, relative to the positions of the sun and moon in the sky.

Each tunnel weighs 22 tons and rests on a buried concrete foundation. Due to the density, shape, and thickness of the concrete, the temperature is 15 to 20 degrees cooler inside the tunnels in the heat of day. There is also a considerable echo inside the tunnel.

N.H. 32