Temple Galaxia

Galaxia is shaped of 20 timber trusses converging as a spiral towards one point in the sky. The triangular trusses form different paths towards a central space holding a giant 3D printed mandala, the heart of Galaxia. The timber modules start large enough to hold small alcoves in which people can write in peace. As participants walk through the path, the timber modules lift up and become thinner and thinner towards the sky as people reach the central mandala.

The Burning Man Temple is one of the most significant places held annually at the Burning Man festival, a portal for healing, sharing emotional experiences, creating profound connections with one’s own self and others and then watching it all burst into flames on the last day.

The temple is a special place, one for the community to pray, heal and release grief. It is a place for us to cry, together, over our losses, whether it is a loved one or your old self. The temple helps you reflect on these emotions and connects you to every one else in their sorrows and their hopes.

Galaxia celebrates hope in the unknown, stars, planets, black holes, the movement uniting us in swirling galaxies of dreams. A superior form of Gaia in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Galaxia is the ultimate network, the fabric of the universe connecting living beings into one entity.

Sixty metres wide. Twenty metres high. Six months to build it off site, one month to assemble it in the desert, and two hundred people to build it with, all of them volunteers. We had to fundraise every penny.

What we had was people who wanted to come with us. What we did not have was money or time. That was the equation we designed against.

60 m span  ·  20 m high  ·  20 timber trusses  ·  200 volunteers  ·  18,000 screws  ·  6 months off site

The engineers did not give us a structure. They gave us a formula. A screw resists 1.8 kilonewtons, these are your loads, deal with it.

So Galaxia has no columns. It is off-the-shelf timber, two by fours and four by fours, assembled with screws and straps. Every piece is a four by four, a two by four, or half a four by four, and nothing else. Every screw we could design out was a dollar we did not have to raise. There were eighteen thousand of them.

The mandala at the centre was 3D printed, and the chandeliers were printed in Reno on the way to the playa.

People walked in and left offerings in the middle. On the last night the temple burned, as every Burning Man temple does.

That is the point of it. A secular place to grieve, together, and then to let it go. Leave no trace is one of the ten principles at Burning Man, and it turns out to be a good description of circularity too.

“I got married inside it. On the last night we burned it, which honestly I did not want to do, and which felt right anyway. We are taught that the Greek ruins are the ultimate architecture because they lasted. I am not sure that is the ambition any more.”

Arthur Mamou-Mani

Galaxia did not end on the playa. The structure kept going, spiritually and then literally.

Hope and Time was built in Romania, growing out of the same geometry. In Berlin, the Friedrichstadt-Palast used it for the stage design of Falling in Love with Jean Paul Gaultier. Then Paris asked for a structure at the Place de la Concorde to gather people again, which became Concordia.

That one we are not burning. It is going to the Camargue to become a bird observatory.

Galaxia was covered by CNN, Forbes, Dezeen, Inhabitat and the Burning Man Journal.

CNN Style
“Arthur Mamou-Mani, temple architect for Burning Man 2018”

Forbes
“The colossal Galaxia temple destined for ashes”

Dezeen
“Arthur Mamou-Mani unveils twisting temple for Burning Man 2018”

Dezeen
“Arthur Mamou-Mani shares drone footage of Burning Man temple Galaxia”

Burning Man Journal
“Galaxia, the 2018 Temple”

Inhabitat
“Spiralling timber temple revealed for Burning Man 2018”