Arch of Time

Uniting the Celestial and the Terrestrial

Arch of Time is a Land Art Generator artwork, a triumphal arch set in a public park in Houston. It has eleven apertures that cast a beam of light and tell the time of day and seasons like a sundial. The south face is clad in solar modules and generates 400,000 kWh of clean electricity each year. The image shows children playing in the grass foreground and people standing in the shade of the artwork.

Arch of Time

A Monument to Houston’s Leadership in Culture & Energy

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Arch of Time in Houston is a Land Art Generator artwork by Riccardo Mariano for Mason Park.

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Powering the Park

Incorporating custom solar photovoltaic modules into the south-facing exterior of the sculpture, it will generously give 400,000 kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually—enough to power the park!

A Sundial

Visitors to the Arch of Time will witness a meticulously orchestrated casting of sunlight as a performance onto the ground plane throughout each day under 25,000 square feet of shaded, breeze-filled microclimate.

A new artwork by Riccardo Mariano for Houston is a bold fusion of art, technology, and sustainability.

Clad in over 60,000 solar photovoltaic cells along its south-facing exterior, the sculpture will generate an impressive 400,000 kilowatt-hours of clean energy each year—enough to fully power the park. Beyond its energy contribution, the structure also creates a shaded, breeze-cooled microclimate spanning 25,000 square feet, offering visitors a comfortable retreat.

Uniting the Celestial and the Terrestrial

Doubling as a sundial, The Arch transforms timekeeping into an immersive, ever-changing performance. It bridges sky and earth by choreographing sunlight into a daily spectacle—each beam cast onto the ground in response to the shifting position of the sun. The artwork’s geometry is finely tuned to Houston’s unique latitude and longitude, turning the Earth’s rotation into a dynamic composer of light, season by season, hour by hour.