Walter De Maria, The Broken Kilometer
393 West Broadway, New York
Walter De Maria, The Broken Kilometer, 1979. © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Jon Abbott
Overview
Wednesday–Sunday
12–3 pm and 3:30–6 pm
Admission is free.
The Broken Kilometer (1979), located at 393 West Broadway in New York City, is composed of 500 highly polished, round, solid brass rods, each measuring two meters in length and five centimeters (two inches) in diameter. The 500 rods are placed in five parallel rows of 100 rods each. The sculpture weighs 18 3/4 tons and would measure 3,280 feet if all the elements were laid end-to-end. Each rod is placed such that the spaces between the rods increase by 5mm with each consecutive space, from front to back; the first two rods of each row are placed 80mm apart, the last two rods are placed 580 mm apart. Stadium lights illuminate the work’s full area of 45 by 125 feet.
This work is the companion piece to De Maria's 1977 Vertical Earth Kilometer at Kassel, Germany. In that permanently installed earth sculpture, a brass rod of the same diameter, total weight and total length has been inserted 1,000 meters into the ground.
The Broken Kilometer has been on long-term view to the public since 1979. This work was commissioned and is maintained by Dia Art Foundation.
The Broken Kilometer is closed on Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, December 31, and January 1.
Photography is not permitted.
The Broken Kilometer is located on the ground floor and requires walking up three stairs; it is not wheelchair accessible.
An illustrated brochure about the site is available below.
The Broken Kilometer is located on the ground floor and requires walking up three stairs; it is not wheelchair accessible.
ADA service dogs are welcome. Pets, including therapy or emotional-support animals, are not permitted in the galleries.
Dia Art Foundation maintains 12 locations and sites across the United States and Germany, four of which are long-term installations by Walter De Maria. The American artist began to create work outside the traditional gallery space in the late 1960s, presenting his Mile Long Drawing in 1968 in California’s Mojave Desert. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Dia Art Foundation commissioned some of the artist’s most significant site-specific works, including The Lightning Field (1977) in western New Mexico, and The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979) in New York. Dia continues to maintain these works as well as De Maria’s The Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977) in Kassel, Germany, which is the companion piece to The Broken Kilometer.
Dia is pleased to share this film highlighting the work of Walter De Maria in celebration of our 50th anniversary.
Support provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies
Video: SandenWolff
Interviews: Rachel Wolff and Noah Therrien
Story editor: Rachel Wolff
Filming: Noah Therrien, Jonathan Sanden, Lyle Shanahan, and Nate Reininga
Video editor: Stephen Parnigoni
Assistant editor: Hannah Kaylor
Music: Noah Therrien
Dia Art Foundation staff
Producers: Katherine Ellis and Dan Wolfe
Rights and reproduction: Jenn Kane
Copy editor: Karen Rasaby
Proofreader: Svetlana Kitto
Archivist: Amye McCarther
Oral history coordinator: Lee Colón
Oral history interviews: Matilde Guidelli-Guidi and Amye McCarther
Production assistant: Claire O’Neill
Typesetting: Fernando Zelaya
Director of communications: Hannah Gompertz
Head of marketing: Dani Chin
Director of publications: Kamilah N. Foreman
Special thanks to Elizabeth Childress and the Estate of Walter De Maria
Additional thanks to Bill Dilworth, Patti Dilworth, Heiner Friedrich, Kim Kalberg, Robert Weathers, and Helen Winkler Fosdick
© 2025 Dia Art Foundation
Artist
Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria was born in Albany, California, in 1935. He died in Los Angeles in 2013.
Related Sites
Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room
Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field
Walter De Maria, The Vertical Earth Kilometer
Books
Artists on Walter De Maria
Artists on Walter De Maria is the second installment in a series culled from Dia Art Foundation’s Artists on Artists lectures, focused on the work of artist Walter De Maria. It features contributions from Richard Aldrich, Jeanne Dunning, Guillermo Faivovich and Nicolás Goldberg, and Terry Winters.