Schmidt Hammer Lassen completes new chapter for ARoS with James Turrell’s As Seen Below

ARoS Aarhus Art Museum has opened As Seen Below – The Dome, a new Skyspace by James Turrell. The opening completes The Next Level, the museum’s major underground expansion, and marks the culmination of more than two decades of collaboration between the City of Aarhus, ARoS and Schmidt Hammer Lassen.

Rising 16 metres high and spanning 40 metres in diameter, As Seen Below is the largest Skyspace ever realised within a museum setting. Visitors enter the monumental dome through an underground passage, where Turrell’s characteristic light compositions frame the sky through an opening at the apex of the structure.

The project is the result of a collaboration unlike most museum developments. Rather than creating a building to accommodate an artwork, the artwork and architecture evolved together over more than a decade. From the dome’s proportions and materials to its lighting and spatial sequence, every element was developed as part of a unified experience.

From the earliest workshops and sketches to the final realization, James Turrell, ARoS and Schmidt Hammer Lassen worked closely together to create a project in which art and architecture are inseparably connected.

The opening marks another milestone in Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s long-standing relationship with ARoS, following the completion of the museum in 2004 and the addition of Olafur Eliasson’s Your Rainbow Panorama in 2011.

Bringing the project to life has been a complex and rewarding journey, and we are delighted to finally see this ambitious vision open to the public.

Photo: Adam Mørk