An Enormous Rainbow Mural Graces The National Building Museum Lawn During Pride Month

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The wide lawn of the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., has taken on a riot of rainbow hues in a geometric mural designed by artist Lisa Marie Thalhammer.

The installation, titled Equilateral Network, was designed to create spaces for social distancing with its triangular grid. Unpainted sections of lawn provide walking paths, and equilateral triangles lined in pink define spaces for people to sit, separated by six feet of distance.

Thalhammer designed the work in the fall of 2020, when social distancing was a pressing concern. Its opening now coincides with Pride month, creating a colorful new space for gatherings in the newly reopened city.

"I really wanted to do a piece that would help bring a balance and a calm and also a joy and a wonder to the city," says Thalhammer, who splits her time between D.C. and her native Saint Louis. "You come and you sit in the piece and it shifts the energy of the space."

To create her design, Thalhammer took inspiration from Pierre L'Enfant, the French-American engineer and city planner who was tasked by George Washington with creating a plan for a new federal district along the Potomac. L'Enfant's design endures in modern D.C., where wide avenues cut angles across the city's grid.