An American Temple

The Manhattan Project is the greatest American monument. Its legacy is nearly everlasting across the globe and deep into our shared Earth. This project reconstructs the first graphite pile created in Chicago as one step in an immense effort by the US government to build the first nuclear bomb. As such, it recasts this monument of war, death, and destruction as a secular American temple.

This temple was commissioned by the Second Chicago Architecture Biennial: Make New History.

In collaboration with The Empire, Ilaria Forti, and Barbara Modolo. Photos by Ilaria Forti.