The New York Earth Room

The New York Earth Room (1977) is a long-term installation by Walter De Maria. An entire room is filled with 280,000 lbs of earth and obliges the viewer to smell and somehow experience the soil, even if situated on the second floor of a building.

The New York Earth Room is part of a series of three, realized by De Maria in Munich (1968) and in Darmstadt (1974). The others Earth Rooms have been dismantled. The installation was commissioned and is maintained by Dia Art Foundation.