CHORUS VENTUS

Client : Lauritzen Gardens
Location : Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Status : Completed 2025
Engineers : Structure Workshop
Fabricator : The White Wall Company
Technical Consultant : William Dowsett
Architect : The Architectural Offices
Lighting : McKay Lighting
Photography : Tom Kessler

Chorus Ventus is a kinetic sculpture for Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha, Nebraska, inspired by the tall-grass prairie of central North America—an ecosystem of which less than 4% remains intact. Imagining the discovery of a fantastical new plant species named Chorus Ventus (“Dance of the Wind”), the artwork comprises of 151 curved steel tubes each of which holds a yellow glass-reinforced polymer rod with a pink bell on its tip. The rods, ranging from 1 to 3 metres in length, respond to the subtlest movements of air or to public touch, vibrating gently and releasing soft chimes that evoke the whispering of prairie grasses. At night the artwork is washed with coloured light acting as a beacon drawing people to the gardens from the surrounding area.