Multiverse - The Light Tunnel Between Buildings
Photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
A stop on Washington DC National Mall Walking Tour, a free self-guided tour.
The concourse that links the West and East Buildings runs under Fourth Street, and the moving walkway down its 200-foot length is lined with one of the most photographed artworks in Washington: Multiverse, by the American artist Leo Villareal.
Installed in 2008, it is made of about 41,000 computer-controlled LEDs set into channels along the walls and ceiling. Villareal wrote software that sends patterns of light rippling past in sequences that rarely repeat, so you never see quite the same show twice.
Stand still at one end for a minute and watch the patterns, or ride the walkway slowly and look up. Along the way you pass the concourse cafe and the gift shop.
At the far end, take the escalator up into the East Building's atrium and the Calder mobile.
More on Wikipedia: Leo Villareal · National Gallery of Art
Stops on this tour
- Washington Monument
- National Museum of African American History and Cu
- National Museum of American History
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
- National Gallery of Art
- United States Capitol
- United States Botanic Garden
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Air and Space Museum
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- The Smithsonian Institution Building - The Castle
- Freer Gallery of Art
- Jefferson Memorial
- World War II Memorial
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Korean War Memorial
- Lincoln Memorial
- Vietnam Veterans Memorial
- White House Ellipse
- White House
- Lafayette Square