Burning Man 2020 Festival To Include New Temple: The Empyrean
The more it draws near, the more exciting Burning Man becomes. And just recently, the festival unveiled their newest temple for the 2020 festival. Introducing, the Empyrean. A marvel of modern design and geometric architecture, this new temple looks to uphold this year’s theme, “Multiverse”. Whether it will go down as one of the festival’s best temple remains to be seen. 
With a theme that touches on cosmology, expectations for the artistic showcases in this year’s Burning Man are high. The festival explained their “Multiverse” theme as “the quantum kaleidoscope of possibility, the infinite realities of the multiverse, and our own superpositioning as actors and observers in the cosmic Cacophony of resonant strings”. For now, the Empyrean temple for 2020 looks befitting of the theme. With the images they’ve just released, artists Laurence “Renzo” Verbeck and Sylvia Adrienne Lisse stayed within the principle of the theme. Ultimately, they came up with an intrinsically futuristic design. It also looks to be a massive structure.
Featuring an eight-point star design, the temple will span 200 feet in diameter. Its highest point, on the other hand, will reach up to 700 feet high. There’s almost something tribal-like with the rustic elegance of the design. However, the points perpetuate the modern sensibility of the artistry. Each point faces upward as if to point to the heavens and beyond. The middle structure, the highest point of the temple, even looks like a rocket ship ready to blast off. The center of the light in the design, its glowing bases looks like it will help illuminate the temple in a cosmic yet simple way. 
Katie Hazard, Associate Director for Burning Man Arts, explained on the Burning Man Journal website their reasons for choosing the ‘Empyrean’ design. “Every year, we explore a spectrum of design submissions from our community’s artists and builders, and we approach our decision with the goal of creating a special physical space on the playa for Black Rock City’s citizens to share their reflections. ‘Empyrean’ was chosen for its lovely geometry and inclusive design, as well as for its strong leads and crew who have demonstrated the experience, integrity, and feasibility necessary to create this unique space. We can’t wait to see their vision come to life!”
Additionally, a video was uploaded to YouTube to further explain the Empyrean design. “Empyrean is a temple of opportunity, inclusion, interactivity, and offers an experience of a transformative multiverse. Empyrean represents the region just beyond our physical realm that is the highest center of wisdom and is the source of energy consciousness. In ancient cosmology, Empyrean is the realm of pure light that is believed to be the birthplace of fire.” the video conveyed. It also noted the importance of the eight-point star design, complete with a unique animated view of what it may possibly look like once completed.
Watch the video below:
Burning Man 2020 will happen from August 30 to September 7, 2020. The venue remains at Black Rock Desert in Nevada, USA. For now, they have yet to announce this year’s lineup. Stay tuned on this space for more updates!
Image Credits:
- Burning Man Festival Featured Image – YourEDM.com
- The Empyrean – Kickstarter.com
- Black Rock Desert City – BurningManJournal.org