The Wave Organ
Bayside acoustic sculpture built from salvaged cemetery granite and marble, played by the tide through twenty five buried pipes.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Wave Organ on the San Francisco bay explains why the stone under your feet once marked somebody's grave, tracing it back to the 1930s removal of tens of thousands of bodies from the cemeteries clustered around Lone Mountain, including Laurel Hill, resting place of wealthy merchants and eleven US senators. It follows Exploratorium artist Peter Richards and stonemason George Gonzalez, who piled the orphaned granite and marble into this jetty and buried twenty five pipes of concrete and plastic at different depths to let the tide play them. Put your ear to a pipe and listen for the groan, gurgle and hiss as waves push air and water through the stone.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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