10 Top Examples of Land Art From Around the World

By Land8: Landscape Architects Network on March 2, 2015 1 Comment / 41585 views

We search for 10 top examples of land art from around the world. I have written previously about how public art is an essential ingredient in creating a city’s built environment in my article “Incredible Public Art at Highway Underpass!“. The powerful visions of artists often bring cultures and societies into deeper dialogue, ultimately creating more meaningful relationships between people and place — a goal central to the landscape architectural project. Hence, there is much to learn from artistry laid upon the land. Here are 10 examples of incredible land art:

Land Art

10. Chevron Cubes Located in Middlesbrough, England, Chevron Cubes is a piece of urban furniture created by design agency United Creatives as part of a Grant Associates mixed-use development public realm design. The florid colors reference the distinct locale of the project and endeavour to reflect the surrounding industry and residences.

Chevron Cubes. Photo credit: United Creatives Ltd.

9. Freedom Sculptor Zenos Frudakis has forged this public sculpture to signify the notion of struggle for achievement and to break free — a feeling that is undoubtedly felt ubiquitously by people around the world. The composition shows a figure moving left to right, each time one step closer to freedom, and was constructed in 2001 as part of the headquarters of a pharmaceutical company in Philadelphia.

Freedom. Credit: Zenos

8. The Singing Ringing Tree The Singing Ringing Tree is a three-meter tall, wind-powered sculpture located in Lancashire, England. It was completed in 2006 and designed by architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu. Aptly named, this piece of art is composed of galvanized steel pipes, possesses a tree-like resemblance, and exploits the wind’s natural energy to emit both discordant and tuneful notes covering several octaves. WATCH: The Singing, Ringing Tree

7. Huellas Artes This architectural intervention by 100architects artistically recognizes and highlights the daily flux of human functions and flows around the Bellas Artes metro station in Santiago, Chile. It aims to revitalize and catalyze the site as a place for urban activity and the development of social relationships. WATCH: Huellas Artes official video

6. Invisible Tree Graphic designer Daniel Siering and art director Mario Schuster collaborated to masterfully mimic the rural German landscape straight through the middle of a tree trunk, giving the illusion that the tree has been cut in half. This act of deception was achieved simply by wrapping the tree in plastic sheeting and recreating the background landscape and the bisected trunk through detailed spray painting.

Credit: Daniel Siering and Mario Shu

5. Andres Amador’s Sand Art

Sand art creation by Andres Amador

San Francisco-area based artist Andres Amador is renowned for his ephemeral use of beach sand at low tide to create beautiful works of art. Reaching sizes of up to 100,000 square feet, Amador’s sand paintings are created by using a rake to delicately scarify wet sand in order to achieve a variety of textures, using rope as a geometric guide. 4. Elastic Perspective This circuitous Cor-Ten steel staircase designed by NEXT architects sits on a hill in the Rotterdam suburb of Carnisselande in the Netherlands. Based on the principle of the Mobius Strip — a single-surface volume with no top or bottom — the result is an unending pathway whose periphery is impossible to circumambulate and that serves as a reflection on the equivocal cultural relations between the suburban dwellers of Carnisselande and the urbanites of Rotterdam.

The Elastic Perspective. Photo credit Sander Meisner

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3. Giant Clothespin Designed by Turkish artist Mehmet Ali Uysal and built for the festival of the five seasons in Chaudfontaine Park, Belgium, it gives the illusion of the earth below being firmly grasped in the clutches of this huge, spring-loaded sculpture.

Mehmet Ali Uysal _ Skin 2_ Liege, Belgium, 2010 Courtesy of the artist and Pi Artworks Photography: Zoe Baraton

2. Pine Cones A series of contemporary works forged by artist and sculptor Floyd Elzinga, these sculptures were created through the upcycling of shovelheads. Elzinga refers to them as “Colonization Devices”, signifying the dichotomy associated with seeds, which inherently possess both harmless and hostile natures. The use of commonplace steel allows Elzinga to aim attention at the mechanistic, hostile side, not the innocuous image the population tends to perceive.

Photo credit: Upcycled Art Pine Cones by Floyd Elzinga

1. Simon Beck’s Snow Art Possessing the same temporality and impermanence as Andre Amador’s artwork, Simon Beck’s snow art lasts only until the blustery French Alpine winds of the Savoie Valley blows it away. It takes Beck up to 11 hours to create a single image, using only a compass and by counting the steps he takes in his briquette snowshoes. You can also see our book review on Simon Beck’s snow art.

Credit: Simon Beck’s Snow Art

What Land Art Has to Offer

Used as precedents, these 10 examples offer insight into the processes, symbolism, and metaphoricity inherent in the making of art within the landscape, which, in turn, contributes to our world both socially and culturally. Recommended Reading: