Celestial Vault

This landscape artwork by James Turrell is tucked away in the dunes of Kijkduin. The artwork, a bowl in the shape of an ellipse measuring 30 by 40 metres, is meant as a spot to observe the sky.

Visitors reach the artificial crater by climbing up the rubble dune on wooden stairs and then walking through a concrete passageway. The slopes on the inside of the crater have been sown with grass and a monumental natural stone bench is in the middle on which two people can lie back and observe how the sky is a vault. A similar bench is located on a higher dune where a panorama unfolds over the sea, the beach and the flat countryside beyond.

For Turrell, light and space themselves are the object and during the act of observation the observer should experience that he/she is observing.

‘Celestial Vault’ was commissioned by the Stroom Den Haag art centre and is one of the most popular and mysterious artworks in The Hague.

Address

Machiel Vrijenhoeklaan 175, Kijkduin