This month in 1993, the start of a project that is going to take a while: the Zeitpyramide, a 120 block art installation that’s being built at the rate of one block every decade.
It’s like the Pitch Drop Experiment of construction projects!
Zeitpyramide means “time pyramid” in German.
It was the idea of Manfred Laber, an artist from the town of Wemding, in southern Germany.
The town was marking its 1,200th birthday in 1993, so Laber suggested an art project that would demonstrate in real time just how long 1.2 millennia really is.
Every ten years, the town adds one large concrete block to the installation site.
There are now four in place.
The base is supposed to be eight blocks wide by eight block long, so the people of Wemding aren’t going to be able to start on the second row for another 610 years.
The whole pyramid will be complete in the year 3183, assuming the locals can keep up with the rigorous construction schedule.
This also assumes that these big concrete blocks that are supposed to be out in the elements for literally centuries are going to be intact and still strong enough to support the ones placed above them.
Will there even be concrete in the 32nd Century? Who in the 21st Century can say for sure?
All of this was probably what Laber was trying to get us to think about when he first proposed the Zeitpyramide.
While they do have an augmented reality system in place so you can visit the site and visualize what the finished pyramid will look like, it’s still going to take time to build the actual one.
And what feels like a long time to us here today, in the grand scheme of time, maybe isn’t so long after all.
Think about that for a while!
Starting tomorrow in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, it’s the Wisconsin Mac & Cheese Fest.
Ticketholders will get the chance to sample all kinds of mac & cheese variations and drinks, plus there will be games and entertainment.
Best of all, they’ll get to take home a special commemorative spork, which is how you know this is serious!
Back us on Patreon and, over time, we’ll build something great together
Photo by MageOfTheEast – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikicommons
