James Turrell at Roden Crater

James Turrell is an artist who works with light. His grandest project, taking shape in the desert near Flagstaff, Arizona, is the transformation of Roden Crater into the sort of sky temple built by neolithic and bronze age people. From the project web site:

Roden Crater is an extinct volcanic cinder cone, situated at an elevation of approximately 5,400 feet in the San Francisco Volcanic Field near Arizona’s Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon. The roughly 400,000 year old, 600 foot tall red and black cinder cone is being turned into a monumental work of art and naked eye observatory by the artist James Turrell. Working with visual phenomena that have interested man since the dawn of civilization, the Roden Crater project will bring the light of the heavens down to earth, linking visitors with the celestial movements of planets, stars and distant galaxies. In addition to exploring the interplay of light and space in his art, Turrell has looked closely at the design of ancient observatories as places for visual perception.

This aerial photo of the cone gives you an idea of the scale. Turrell says:

I admire Borobudur, Angkor Wat, Pagan, Machu Picchu, the Mayan pyramids, the Egyptian pyramids, Herodium, Old Sarum, Newgrange and the Maes Howe. These places and structures have certainly influenced my thinking. These thoughts will find concurrence in Roden Crater. 

Turrell began thinking about the project in 1974, and was able to purchase the crater in 1979. His plan for the crater involves twenty "spaces", some with multiple views of the sky, arranged in a progression that culminates in the large central space.

The eye.

Another image of the keyhole, the most photographed of the spaces.

Turrell:

At Roden Crater I was interested in taking the cultural artifice of art out into the natural surround. I did not want the work to be a mark upon nature, but I wanted the work to be enfolded in nature in such a way that light from the sun, moon and stars empowered the spaces … I wanted an area where you had a sense of standing on the planet. I wanted an area of exposed geology like the Grand Canyon or the Painted Desert, where you could feel geologic time. Then in this stage set of geologic time, I wanted to make spaces that engaged celestial events in light so that the spaces performed a “music of the spheres” in light. 

The artist and his cinder cone.