Vertical Earth Kilometer
In Friedrichsplatz Park in Kassel, Germany, there is a public art installation of epic scale, but you can�t see it. The only visible sign of its existence is a small brass disk, two inches wide, embedded in a red sandstone plate, two meters by two meters square. That simple brass disk is actually the top-end of a one-kilometer long rod inserted vertically into the ground with the top lying flush to the surface of the earth.
The strange art piece was installed in 1977 by the famed American artist Walter De Maria who is known for his monumental sculptures and installation that combine the simplicity of minimalism and vast scale. Earlier, Walter had created �The Lightning Field� in New Mexico consisting of 400 stainless steel posts arranged in a 1 mile � 1 kilometer grid array. Another one of Walter De Maria�s creation, �The Broken Kilometer�, is composed of five hundred two-meter-long solid brass rods, each with the same diameter as the rod used for �The Vertical Earth Kilometer�, arranged in five parallel rows of one hundred rods each. That one is located in New York City.
Photo credit: Daniel Lobo/Flickr
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