Inside James Turrell's 100th Skyspace: A Pantheon-Sized Dome Beneath a Danish Museum

On June 19, 2026 — timed to the summer solstice — ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Denmark opened 'As Seen Below – The Dome,' the 100th Skyspace by American artist James Turrell . It is also the largest Skyspace ever built within a museum context, a milestone decades in the making .

Size and Pantheon comparison

The dome is 16 metres (52 ft) high and 40 metres (130 ft) in diameter . Multiple sources compare its proportions to the Pantheon in Rome, whose dome measures just over 43 metres in diameter . Turrell himself described it as his most ambitious Skyspace to date .

Three experience modes

The ARoS official site and press materials confirm three distinct ways to experience the work :

• Open Sky — The dome's aperture is open to the elements. The sky itself becomes a pure, frameless field of colour. No reservation is required .
• Colour Shift — The exterior lid is closed, and the interior is bathed in Turrell's signature programmed sequences of shifting coloured light. These sessions run hourly from May to August, and every two hours the rest of the year .
• Twilight sessions — Held at sunrise and sunset daily. The lid is open and Turrell's light amplification heightens the natural colour transitions of the sky. Each session lasts 37–64 minutes, depending on the season .

Location and access

The Skyspace is the centrepiece of The Next Level, ARoS's historic expansion. Visitors reach the subterranean domed chamber through a light-filled tunnel descending beneath the museum's rooftop garden . It is a semi-subterranean structure — the dome rises only slightly above ground level, preserving sightlines in the adjacent Musikhusparken . The expansion also includes the Salling Gallery, an underground exhibition space .

Project history and delays

• First announced in 2015 as a collaboration between James Turrell and Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects .
• Originally estimated at €40 million and planned for completion around 2020–2023 .
• The project was hit by financial setbacks and a specific delay when HB Schack, the supplier manufacturing the specialised dome lid, went bankrupt in early 2025, adding 6.7 million DKK in extra costs and pushing back completion .

Significance and opening

• It is Turrell's 100th Skyspace worldwide .
• It is the largest Skyspace in a museum context anywhere in the world .
• It opened on June 19, 2026, timed to the summer solstice .

Place in Turrell's broader career

Turrell installed his first Skyspace in 1974 in Varese, Italy . His Skyspaces now span more than two dozen countries . His landmark ongoing work at Roden Crater in Arizona — a massive naked-eye observatory carved into a dormant volcano — was begun in 1977 and remains under development .