A Monumental Richard Serra Sculpture Will Anchor a New Art Park in Florida
A new gallery space currently under development, set in the picturesque Watersound community of Northwest Florida, is set to house the 217-foot, 540,000-pound Richard Serra work, Passage of Time. The purpose-built Passage of Time Pavilion in the 15.5-acre Longleaf Art Park will showcase the iconic work, which features eight two-inch-thick weathering steel plates set in a meandering parallel arrangement.
The trapezoidal sculpture pavilion is just one standout feature of Longleaf Art Park—a project that melds culture and nature. Designed by OLI Architecture in collaboration with the late artist, the structure that will house Passage of Time is intended to be entered from glass vestibules, welcoming visitors to an intimate experience with the sculpture while conversing with the surrounding tree canopy and wetlands. The aim is to create a destination that blends organically with its existing natural environment, creating a harmonious coexistence with the surrounding wetlands. OLI also designed the site-specific LX Pavilion, which houses Serra’s London Cross sculpture in New York.
“The importance of access to a piece of work as significant as Richard Serra’s Passage of Time cannot be overstated, and the impact it will have on our local artists, residents, students and visitors will be limitless and lasting for generations,” said Jennifer Steele, executive director of the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, in a statement. The ambitious Passage of Time Pavilion project, expected to be complete and open to the public in 2026, was brought to life through the support of the Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation (BCF).
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Richard Serra, who passed away last March at age 85, is known for his monumental site-specific sculptures created to interact with the body and space, designing experimental environments that force visitors to reorient their position in the world. Often looking as otherworldly presences, his works shared the majestic scale and mystical imponderable sacrality of some of the most ancient landmarks created by humans, from the Stone Age to Greek or Mayan temples. Encouraging “peripatetic perception,” his sculptures are something to experience fully in space, with the whole body and all senses, to nourish our awareness of how we navigate our physical presence in this world.