Energy Alignment Sculpture: Pyramid in the Golden Section

Produced for an exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery and installed at SFU in 1977, Beardslee’s pyramid—an open, tubular steel frame painted cerulean blue—is carefully positioned to align with the rotation of the earth’s axis and the North Star. In both form and spirit, Beardslee’s sculpture is an apt compliment to the adjacent mounded earth pyramid designed by architect Arthur Erickson. Both pyramids were built to resemble the proportions of the Cheops pyramid in Egypt. In its early years the sculpture attracted unlikely controversy. A debate regarding the correct position required to activate the pyramid’s “power” played out in the pages of the student newspaper and students, saw fit on several occasions to “realign” the pyramid — setting it on top of Erickson’s mounded earth pyramid and the previous student union building for example, before it was cemented in its current location.