You Walk Right Through Them (8 Photos)

Eight artworks and designs that make quite an entrance

A giant face frames a doorway in Miami. Two tunnels become binoculars in Germany, a pavilion fills with colored light in Bristol, and an old bicycle becomes a garden gate. From a small shortcut to a head you can walk inside, here are eight ways in.

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🌈 “Palm Temple” — By Luke Jerram in Bristol, England 🇬🇧

Step between the two halves of this cedar pavilion and the colored panels surround you. Jerram designed them to resemble palms held together, and a mirrored floor reflects the dome. The pavilion stands outside the University of Bristol’s Chemistry Department.

💡 Origin Fact: Sky Arts commissioned the pavilion in Italy to mark the 600th anniversary of Brunelleschi’s dome of Florence Cathedral. After a showing in London in early 2020, Jerram, who comes from Bristol, donated it to the University of Bristol.

More: The Palm Temple (6 Photos)

🔗 Follow Luke Jerram on Instagram

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☀️ “Lumen” — By Daniel Popper in Miami, Florida, USA 🇺🇸

A golden face and branching forms frame the entrance to Society Wynwood. Popper’s 30-foot mosaic sculpture is built around the doorway: the opening sits between the roots beneath its chin.

💡 Artist Fact: Popper is a South African artist known for large installations at festivals such as Burning Man and Electric Forest. Unlike most of the art that comes and goes during Art Basel week, Lumen was unveiled in December 2024 as a permanent work.

More: Daniel Popper’s Giant Sculptures

🔗 Follow Daniel Popper on Instagram

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🌿 “Thrive” — By Daniel Popper in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA 🇺🇸

The figure pulls open its chest to reveal a passage lined with plants. Built for Society Las Olas in 2020, Popper’s 27-foot sculpture brings a pocket of green beneath a residential high-rise.

More: Daniel Popper’s Giant Sculptures

🔗 Follow Daniel Popper on Instagram

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🔭 “Spyglass” — By 3Steps in Wetzlar, Germany 🇩🇪

Two tunnel openings become the lenses of an enormous pair of binoculars. Painted hands hold them against the slope, while the real paths continue straight through the 3Steps mural.

More: Step Back! (7 Photos)

🔗 Follow 3Steps on Instagram

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🫥 “Wonderland” — By Jaume Plensa in Calgary, Canada 🇨🇦

Small doors let visitors step inside this 12-meter steel head outside The Bow. Plensa wanted people to see Calgary’s skyline from within, with the buildings and sky visible through the open lattice.

🔗 Follow Jaume Plensa on Instagram

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🪑 A Shortcut with Seats — By AllesWirdGut in Belval, Luxembourg 🇱🇺

A seat on either side, a route through the middle. This angular opening belongs to AllesWirdGut’s public-space project in Belval, Esch-sur-Alzette, where wood, concrete and steel connect the new square to the former industrial site.

📷 Photo: AllesWirdGut / Landezine (© AllesWirdGut)

🔗 Visit AllesWirdGut’s website

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🚲 A Bicycle’s Second Job

The wheels will not take you anywhere, but the gate still opens. A red bicycle frame, handlebars, chains and gears have been worked into a metal garden gate.

More: Bit of Artwork for Your New Door

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👁️ “Le Cyclop” — By Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle and collaborators in Milly-la-Forêt, France 🇫🇷

A single eye peers out from a mirrored face among the trees. Inside this giant head, stairs lead through a world of mechanical and sound artworks; guided tours take visitors into the sculpture.

💡 History Fact: Work on the head began in the woods in 1969, and the artists gave it to the French State in 1987. President François Mitterrand inaugurated Le Cyclop in May 1994.

🔗 Visit Jean Tinguely at Museum Tinguely and the Niki Charitable Art Foundation.