A life-size indoor maze will fill the great hall of the National Building Museum this summer, providing an activity for museum visitors from July to September.
The maze, which will be surrounded by 18-foot walls and contained in a 61-foot by 61-foot square, will be installed in the West Court of the museum’s main hall. Designed by Danish architecture and design firm Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG, the maze was inspired by “ancient labyrinths, garden and hedge mazes of the 17th and 18th-century Europe and modern American corn mazes,” according to a statement from the National Building Museum.
Within the maze, the wall height will vary, getting lower from the edges to the center, to allow for greater visibility.
“The concept is simple: As you travel deeper into a maze, your path typically becomes more convoluted,” Bjarke Ingels said in a statement. “What if we invert this scenario and create a maze that brings clarity and visual understanding upon reaching the heart of the labyrinth?”
Tickets for the maze will go on sale at the beginning of July. Ticket prices have not been finalized, but the maze will not be free, according to a National Building Museum spokeswoman. The ticket price will give buyers access to all the museum’s other exhibitions.
The maze will serve as a preview to a larger exhibition of BIG’s work to open in October titled “amBIGuity.”
