James Turrell Skyspace “As Seen Below: The Dome” opened to the public at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, and the museum says it is the 100th work in Turrell’s Skyspace series and the largest Skyspace completed inside a museum to date.
The installation occupies a new, vaulted gallery within ARoS, and visitors enter through a renovated underground lobby and a long concrete corridor where light changes with each step, the museum said. The dome stands approximately 52 feet tall and measures more than 131 feet in diameter, enclosing a circular oculus that frames the sky.
Inside the dome, a nearly frameless round skylight collects the familiar blue of daytime, the cloud formations, and the changing colors of dusk, but the scale and proportions transform those elements into a new visual experience, ARoS said. Architects designed the approach so the space shifts from enclosed to open as visitors walk into the central chamber.
Design and scale of James Turrell Skyspace
The museum credited Schmidt Hammer Lassen, the Danish architecture firm, as lead designer for the new gallery and said the expansion was completed after a decade-long project called The Next Level. ARoS said the renovation includes a new underground exhibition space called Salling Gallery, an expanded lobby, a lighting corridor, and an outdoor Art Square to improve visitor circulation.
The dome itself is deliberately spare. Two concentric rings of seating encircle the oculus to encourage visitors to pause, look up, and wait, ARoS said. A perimeter walkway allows slow, contemplative movement around the space, and the floor is finished in gray concrete and brick laid in concentric patterns that lead the eye back to the sky.
How the James Turrell Skyspace works: light, roof, and experience
The Skyspace continues Turrell’s decades-long exploration of light as a material. ARoS said the skylight has an operable roof and an integrated lighting system so natural light, weather, and seasonal shifts alter the view when the roof is open, and artificial light transforms the dome when the roof is closed.
When the roof is closed, the installed lighting washes the dome walls in changing hues, which the museum said creates distinct layers of depth against the sealed sky aperture. That sequence of natural and artificial lighting means the same visit can yield very different visual conditions depending on time of day and weather.
Seating and circulation
ARoS said the seating arrangement is intentionally quiet and minimal to make light the dominant element. Visitors are encouraged to remain seated or walk slowly on the rear walkway, which produces a sustained viewing rhythm that aligns movement with the slow shift of light.
Turrell has framed the Skyspace series as an invitation to reconsider how we look. According to Turrell’s studio, Skyspaces have been installed in about 26 countries since the series began in the 1970s, each one using architecture to frame a portion of sky as a perceptual object.
Part of ARoS expansion and public access
ARoS said the Skyspace gallery is a central element of The Next Level expansion, a program the museum described as a ten-year effort to add new public spaces and improved exhibition facilities. The project, designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen, is intended to reshape visitor flow and program more public-facing activity at the museum.
From the subterranean corridor to the moment a visitor first sees the oculus, ARoS said the work is meant to provide no single answer. Instead, the museum said, the sequence of architecture and light encourages each visitor to find their own way of seeing, a practice the museum linked to Turrell’s lifelong approach to the Skyspace series.
ARoS confirmed the installation is open to visitors as part of the museum’s regular ticketing program. For practical information and visiting hours, the museum asked readers to consult ARoS Aarhus Art Museum’s official website.
Turrell has said he does not create images so much as sculpt the act of seeing, and ARoS said the new Skyspace is meant to make visitors more aware of how light shapes perception. The museum described the work as both a continuation and a new scale for the Skyspace project.
