Rock Walls as Art? Discover Why You Must Experience These Andy Goldsworthy Creations Across the U.S.

Similar to Monet's haystacks and water lilies, sculptural artist Andy Goldsworthy—whose works are showcased from the Presidio in San Francisco to Storm King in New York—features cairns and walls. The term 'cairn,' popularized by Outlander, refers to stone piles used since ancient times across continents to mark landmarks, memorials, or graves. Goldsworthy’s innovative piece, Walking Wall (2019), introduces an element of movement to a traditional stone wall.

Born in the U.K. in 1956, Goldsworthy initially created ephemeral sculptures using natural materials like sticks, ice, and leaves. The documentary Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time (2001) highlights his early creations. Over time, he has transitioned to producing permanent, commissioned works globally, often collaborating with skilled artisans to shape the rocks used in his art.

Goldsworthy’s art is unique, sculptural, and specifically designed for each site. He often constructs large-scale pieces from local materials, blending the natural with the man-made. The artist himself states, “If you had to describe my work in one word, it would be ‘time.’” However, context and content are just as crucial. Unlike paintings or photographs, his sculptures require a physical journey around them to fully appreciate their essence. Time, place, material, and weather influence his artwork, prompting viewers to see how a wall can evoke joy rather than division, alongside the grandeur of ancient trees.

Throughout his more than 50-year career, Goldsworthy has produced countless iconic public works worldwide, including several in the United States. While it's expected to find his pieces in New York and California, his art also surprises in places like Des Moines, Iowa, and Kansas City, Missouri. A bonus of visiting these locations: most are situated near art museums. Here are six U.S. sites where you can explore Goldsworthy's sculptures.

1. Storm King Wall

• Location: New Windsor, New York
• Hours: Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (extended to 7:30 p.m. on Fridays & Saturdays); closed on Tuesdays
• Tickets: Admission to Storm King Art Center starts at $23 and includes parking.

Goldsworthy’s first permanent work commissioned by a U.S. museum was the Storm King Wall (1997), situated at the Storm King Art Center, roughly an hour's drive north of New York City. Originally designed to be 750 feet long, the serpentine wall now stretches over 2,200 feet, winding through woods and across a pond, using 1,500 tons of fieldstone. Unlike typical straight walls, this playful creation adapts to its surroundings, paving the way for Goldsworthy’s later work on the “walking” wall. True to his style, no mortar was used in the construction of this stacked stone masterpiece. In 2010, Goldsworthy and a team of British stone masons returned to add a shorter wall featuring 15 boulders.

Just a three-hour drive west of Storm King, you can find one of Goldsworthy's early cairns at Cornell University. Also located on campus at the Cornell Botanic Gardens is the Goldsworthy Holocaust Memorial, which was originally created for the Garden of Stones in New York City, designed for the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Both pieces showcase trees growing from boulders.

2. Three Cairns

• Location: Des Moines, Iowa
• Hours: Open daily, closed on Mondays; Tuesday & Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday & Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday & Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Admission: The Des Moines Art Center and the nearby sculpture park are free to visit.

Goldsworthy’s Des Moines work represents the central segment of the expansive Three Cairns, marking his largest project in the Western Hemisphere. The East Coast cairn was constructed first, starting in late 2001, just outside the Neuberger Museum of Art on the SUNY Purchase campus. You can find the West Coast cairn near the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla, California. However, the Midwest served as the original inspiration for this project, particularly its ancient geological ties to both coasts. The Iowa limestone used in this piece is so ancient that it includes remnants of oceanic life—all three cairns incorporate this roughly cut limestone, formed into an egg-like shape with hand-laid dry stone. In contrast to the coastal cairns, this one features three stone walls with an egg-shaped indentation, reflecting its origins.

This central cairn is situated near the Des Moines Art Center’s inaugural building (1948), designed by architect Eliel Saarinen, who is the father of Eero Saarinen. With its rough-cut limestone exterior, Saarinen’s design optimally utilizes its environment, both inside and out. (The other two structures at the art center were created by Pritzker Prize winners I.M. Pei and Richard Meier.)

3. Walking Wall

• Location: Kansas City, Missouri
• Hours: Open Monday, Thursday, Saturday & Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (until 9 p.m. on Fridays)
• Admission: Free, but visitors must reserve timed entry tickets in advance.

One of Goldsworthy’s latest creations is Walking Wall at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Constructed and purposefully deconstructed and rebuilt throughout 2019, it moved a distance of one third of a mile, intersecting and blocking a four-lane city road along the way. In an interview with PBS, he expressed his hope that viewers would appreciate “how [things] decay and how they change.” The New York Times described it as “a slow-motion performance piece.” It now stands permanently in the museum's sculpture garden. Among the four dry-stone wallers who worked on the project was 72-year-old Gordon Wilton from Derbyshire, who previously assisted Goldsworthy in building his first U.S. wall in 1997, contributing to about five dozen projects with him over the years.

4. Stone River

• Location: Stanford, California
• Hours: Accessible anytime for Stone River; the Cantor Art Museum is open Wednesday–Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Admission: Free

Another captivating wall-like creation by Goldsworthy meanders along the Stanford University campus outside the Cantor Art Museum. According to Goldsworthy, this 320-foot-long sandstone sculpture is as much about light as it is about stone, transforming its appearance throughout the day as the sun moves across the sky. It is placed in a trough, resembling an archaeological dig, and undulates from a four-foot-wide base that narrows as it ascends. The triangular coping stones that crown the meandering “river” weigh as much as 50 pounds. Stone River utilizes the same golden sandstone, composed of approximately 6,500 stones, that was originally used in many campus buildings—literally. He repurposed sandstone blocks that had been stockpiled from buildings damaged in the earthquakes of 1906 and 1989. This serpentine form may also evoke another “natural” concern in California: a scarcity of water.

5. Roof

• Location: Washington, D.C.
• Hours: Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Admission: Free

In 2005, Goldsworthy unveiled Roof at the National Gallery of Art, featuring nine slate domes. Each hollow dome has a diameter of 27 feet and a 2-foot opening at the center; the gallery refers to them as black holes. This installation presents an intriguing juxtaposition to the city's iconic domed buildings like the U.S. Capitol and the Jefferson Memorial. Despite its name, Roof is located in the ground-level garden of the gallery’s East Wing. This expansive sculpture—one of the largest commissioned by the National Gallery—measures 139 feet in length. Like many of his works, it is hard to overlook. The slate originates from the same Virginian quarry used for the roofs of Ford’s Theater and the Smithsonian castle. The artist remarked to NPR, “The underlying tension of a lot of my art is to try and look through the surface appearance of things. Inevitably, one way of getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into what lies below.”

6. Spire and Wood Line

• Location: San Francisco, California
• Hours: Outdoors (daylight hours are ideal)
• Admission: Free

Goldsworthy is particularly intrigued by how outdoor works evolve over time. He has remarked, “Movement, change, light, growth, and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to harness through my art.” These themes are especially apparent when you explore Spire and walk along Wood Line.

Located in San Francisco, The Presidio, a former U.S. Army post now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, hosts the largest public collection of Goldsworthy's works in the country—four installations. Spire, built in 2008, draws inspiration from the forested area of the Presidio and its ongoing tree-planting initiatives. Comprising 37 cypress trunks, it towers at 100 feet. In June 2020, a brush fire—possibly due to arson—dramatically altered its appearance. Today, Spire remains standing, albeit charred, serving as an unintentional commentary on the increasing wildfire threats facing California in recent years.

The Wood Line site has historical roots dating back to the 19th century, when rows of eucalyptus trees were planted alongside Monterey cypress near an old path known as Lovers’ Lane. The cypress did not flourish, creating gaps in the landscape. Wood Line stretches about 1,200 feet, meandering along the forest floor and transforming one of these gaps into a walkable sculpture flanked by towering trees. This design encourages visitors to stroll leisurely between two “walls” of tall eucalyptus, creating a tranquil space in a densely populated city where land is so limited that there is only one cemetery (a military one, also located in the Presidio).

Goldsworthy's other two installations in the Presidio, Earth Wall and Tree Fall, are smaller, indoors, and less accessible, yet they are also free to visit. During a weekend stroll along a three-mile loop of trails, you can see all four works while enjoying scenic views of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.