Every April, the sun-baked desert of Indio, California, bursts to life as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival takes over. What started in 1999 as a daring experiment by Goldenvoice has become a global celebration of music, art, and imagination, drawing thousands from every corner of the world.
Large-scale installations and immersive designs transform the open landscape, inviting visitors to explore, pause, and experience the festival as much through its spaces as through its music.
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, one of the world’s largest music events, is also a premier venue for contemporary architecture and installation art. Showcasing architecture’s focus on ephemerality, sustainability, and experiential design, the festival presents an atmosphere where temporary pavilions, stage designs, illuminated installations, and large-scale sculptures come together to merge art and architecture.
Here are the most notable installations of the last 7 years of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival:
1. 2025 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
The 2025 Coachella Festival, held April 11-13 and April 18-20, blended music with modern art and architectural installations to create a dynamic spectacle. Curated by Raffi Lehrer of Public Art Company (PAC) and in collaboration with Goldenvoice Artistic Director Paul Clemente, the program explores themes of illusion and reality through three new art installations in addition to permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Taffy / Stephanie Lin
The Taffy installation, designed by Canadian designer Stephanie Lin for the 2025 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, consists of seven cylinders, with the tallest reaching 15 meters. Inspired by mid-century desert modernism, the towers feature combed mesh façades, and their color palette shifts with sunlight, creating a temporal interpretation of the landscape. Window benches placed beneath the towers’ slender metal legs allow spectators to pass through and provide shaded seating.
Le Grand Bouquet / Uchronia
Le Grand Bouquet, designed by Paris-based studio Uchronia, is an installation inspired by the “flower power” motifs of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The centerpiece of the installation is a 10-meter-tall piece with green-painted metal stems bearing inflatable flowers, surrounded by several smaller flowers. A 10-meter-tall inflatable flower structure references the seasonal blooms of the desert with a composition of fabric flowers. Tiered seating in the shape of petals, painted in tones matching the flowers at the base of the central bouquet, encourages passive interaction.
Take Flight / Isabel + Helen
Inspired by early 19th-century flying machines, the Take Flight installation was designed by London design studio Isabel+Helen. Referencing the studio’s smaller-scale works, this ascending installation consists of three 18-meter-tall kinetic towers integrating custom turbines that respond to the prevailing winds of the Coachella Valley.
2. 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
The 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, held from April 12 to 14 and April 19 to 21, 2024, presented a magical atmosphere at the Empire Polo Club. Touted as the most ambitious art program in the festival’s history, the 2024 Coachella saw the production agency Public Art Company, Coachella’s art director Paul Clemente, and festival operator Goldenvoice collaborate on three installations “exploring the boundaries between reality and imagination.” The visually stunning 2024 Coachella installations were deeply interactive, offering new ways to connect audiences with the art, each other, and the environment around them.
Monarchs: A House in Six Parts / HANNAH
Monarchs, designed by Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic from HANNAH studio, consists of plywood ribbon towers rising from geometrically 3D-printed concrete bases that participants can walk under and through. Combining digital fabrication techniques with traditional artisan methods, this installation reinterprets architectural design through 3D printing and a perspective inspired by nature. The towers, ranging in height from 10 to 25 meters and painted in shades of blue and orange, display varying tones at night with vibrant light effects.
With its 3D-Printing Ceramics: Advanced Digital Flow workshop, PAACADEMY aims to provide an overview of how a fluid approach using different software can be applied to bridge the gap between the physical and the virtual.
Dancing in the Sky / Morag Myerscough
Created to allow visitors to relax and feel welcomed, the installation is a 38×38-meter colorful and dynamic environment, with various pathways for attendees to walk under and around. Kinetic elements dance in the sky within the structures, and abstract moving shapes above draw their energy from ground activity and the sun.
Babylon / Nebbia
Babylon, featured at the 2024 Coachella Festival, was designed by Nebbia designers Brando Posocco and Madhav Kidao, inspired by the enduring fascination with “transcendence.” This installation blends ancient architectural forms with futuristic design elements, presenting a study in contrasts. A visual landmark of the festival, this monumental structure serves as a haven of shadow and light.
3. 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
Following a pandemic-related hiatus, the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was held for the second time from April 14–16 and 21–23. The festival provided a platform for architects, artists, and collectives from around the world to create experimental structures and installations within the festival grounds, featuring works from previous years as well as newly commissioned large-scale artworks.
The Messengers / Kumkum Fernando
Designed by Sri Lankan artist Kumkum Fernando for the 2023 Coachella Festival, the installation features three massive sculptural figures, the tallest reaching 24 meters, with robotic silhouettes adorned with colorful motifs found in Hindu and Buddhist temples across South Asia. Creating a colorful gathering space, each of these sculptures has a pedestal that allows visitors to gather and gaze at the sculptures, which stand prominently between the festival’s two main stages. Throughout the night, they are illuminated with a soft purple light.
Molecular Cloud / Vincent Leroy
Designed by French artist Vincent Leroy, Molecular Cloud is a series of bright pink spheres clustered on steel poles on a slight hill overlooking the festival’s main stage. Mirroring the motion of molecules, the clusters slowly move on axes, creating different configurations to reveal a permanently altered perspective. As they approach the massive mobiles, the reflective spheres merge with the landscape, creating a hypnotic and imaginative spectacle.
Holoflux / Güvenç Özel
Designed by Los Angeles-based designer Güvenç Özel for the 2023 Coachella Festival, Holoflux is an 18-meter-tall architectural sculpture whose steel frame is wrapped in iridescent fabric. From a distance, Holoflux appears as a sculpture, but up close it transforms into architecture. Visitors can walk under and around the installation, where the vinyl gradient surface print plays with perceptions of three-dimensionality.
Eden / Maggie West
Described as one of the world’s largest 3D photographic installations, Eden consists of a series of flower silhouettes ranging in height from 2 to 17 meters. Designed by Los Angeles-based Maggie West, the flowers are composed of vinyl wrapped around steel and wood structures. The installation draws on West’s photographs of various plants in warm and cool color schemes, with the images further enhanced through the use of light.
4. 2022 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
Following a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, held in the Colorado Desert, explored scale, light, sound, and color through contextual installations addressing global themes such as connectivity, environmental sustainability, migration, social behavior and architecture, popular culture, and society. The dynamic large-scale installation employed progressive approaches to light, structure, sound, and materials, responding to the desert’s unique topography and biodiversity, transforming everyday objects and experiences into playful forms and spaces.
Mutts / Oana Stănescu
Romanian architect Oana Stănescu’s giant, recyclable dog statues, designed for Coachella 2022, are positioned in a typical position to create a dialogue and invite interaction with visitors. The installation features three steel-silhouette sculptures, each in a different primary color and filled with plants. Visitors can touch the dog’s nose, pass beneath the pointer, and rest on the seated dog’s paws.
Buoyed / Kiki van Ejik
Designed with great optimism for the future, Bouyed consists of three totems that incorporate cultural icons from around the world, including a Dutch windmill, an Arctic igloo, and tropical leaves. Highlighting the power of diversity, each totem—approximately four stories tall and angled as if floating on a sea of grass—creates a surreal and joyful space for all visitors, with cultural references that emphasize diversity and inclusivity.
Cocoon (BKF + H300) / Martin Huberman
Designed by Argentine architect Martin Huberman for the 2022 Coachella Festival, the nine-story sculpture is composed of 300 copies of the BKF, known worldwide as the “butterfly” chair. Its structure, which features a silky “skin” made from a window blind-like material, provides shade during the day and illumination at night.
The Playground / Architensions
A vertical response to the Coachella Valley’s single-story suburban landscape, The Playground comprises four towers, each 12 to 17 meters tall, some connected by skybridges. With vibrant colors and dichroic films, these towers form a playful collage of arches and cubes, focusing on human interaction with architecture through a modular grid structure.
Circular Dimensions X Microscape / Cristopher Cichocki
Designed by Coachella Valley-based artist Christopher Cichocki, the five-story Microscope, constructed from over 25,000 feet of PVC tubing, offers a visual showcase of the artist’s ongoing exploration of water and the history of the desert.
La Guardiana / LosDos
La Guardiana, designed as a protector of migrants from Mexico, Central America, and around the world, hangs above the festival site with an enredo (skirt), a rebozo (shawl) to carry her child, a mask to conceal her identity, and horns representing power. The iconography on the skirt includes people walking towards the border wall and traveling by train and boat, evoking the reasons behind the perilous journey to foreign lands.
5. 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
The 2019 Coachella Festival took place from April 12-14 and April 19-21. The festival program, which drew attention with its themes of color, intercultural interaction, community experience, and sustainable material use, was shaped by giant-scale pavilions, towers, and sculptural structures.
Sarbale Ke / Diébédo Francis Kéré
The 2019 Coachella installation by Diébédo Francis Kéré features twelve conical towers inspired by traditional village architecture and baobab trees. Surrounded by colorful triangular screens, the twelve towers are designed as shaded gathering spaces for visitors. Constructed from colorful wood panels, Sarbale Ke brings community-focused architecture to Coachella.
H.I.P.O / Dede Vabo
H.I.P.O. is designed around the imaginative idea of a group of hippos building this capsized rocket to reach space. The installation includes a laboratory and a mission control center where the hippos are “working.” Constructed with nine months of preparation and four months of on-site building, the rocket, approximately 24 meters tall, is positioned on a 24-meter-diameter platform.
Colossal Cacti /Office Kovacs
Colorful, blocky structures modeled after cacti fill the barren valley area, highlighting Coachella’s postmodern side. Four massive cactus-shaped towers contrast against the desert’s natural color palette with their vibrant pink, yellow, orange, and blue. Stepping platforms provide seating, while angled arms extend overhead to provide shade from the sun.
Overview Effect/ Poetic Kinetics
One of the most impactful installations of 2014 Coachella, the 21-meter-tall Astronaut returned to the 2019 Coachella Festival with worn and dirty clothing to suggest a long journey. Typically positioned in a crouch, the astronaut can be animated to perform other realistic movements, while names and faces of festival attendees can be projected onto its helmet.
Mismo / Sofia Enriquez
Mismo, which enlivens the desert landscape with its colorful, oversized motifs, was designed by local painter Sofia Enriquez and inspired by decorative paisley patterns. Constructed from wood, each paisley is painted in bright colors that contrast with the pale desert tones and features unique details; some include fiery edges and floral designs.
6. 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
Beyond the stunning stage shows and music shows, the remarkable installations designed for the 2018 Coachella showcased the powerful combination of architecture and art, creating a magical atmosphere for visitors through their interaction with the space and their aesthetic approach.
Spectra / Newsubstance
After appearing at Coachella in 2018, the spiral rainbow-colored tower returned in 2019 and 2022, designed by UK-based Newsubstance. The seven-story structure features semi-transparent panels that provide colorful views of the desert during the day and are illuminated with LED lights at night.
Etherea / Edoardo Tresoldi
Etherea, Tresoldi’s largest-scale work, comprises three massive monolithic structures reflecting Neoclassical and Baroque architecture. Representing the culmination of Tresoldi’s musical research, the three transparent structures, rising from 10.9 to 21.9 meters in height, transform during the day with light and shadow, creating an exhilarating experience. At night, illuminated from within, they transform into otherworldly sanctuaries.
Supernova / Roberta Behar & Rosario Marquardt ( R&R Studios)
The massive structure, with its 12 arms and large, multicolored spikes extending 12.2 meters in all directions, is shaped like a star. It provides shade for participants during the day and illuminates the area at night, becoming a meeting point.
Palm-3 World Station / Simon Vega
Combining Central American heritage with Cold War-era space technology, this 45.7-meter-tall installation consists of 30 modules constructed from materials such as corrugated metal sheets, television antennas, washing lines, hanging plants, and signs.
Lodestar / Randy Polumbo
Lodestar, resembling a nose-dive plane toward the festival grounds, is constructed from the fuselage of an inverted Lockheed Martin Lodestar jet from World War II, sourced online by Polumbo. The installation’s tail features a cage-like observation tower adorned with glittering disco balls, handmade glass flowers, and metallic leaves.
7. 2017 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
The candy-colored, skyscraper-piercing visual feasts at the 2017 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival focused on pure entertainment, creating a joyful and entertaining oasis for visitors.
Chiazzo Garden / Terri Chiao & Adam Frezza
Adding a cheerful contrast to Coachella’s desert setting, Chiazzo Garden features fantastical botanicals in pastel hues.
Crown Ether / Olalekan Jeyifous
Inspired by the digitized architectural drawings of Nigerian-born Olalekan Jeyifous, Crown Ether is an installation composed of colorful, oversized geometric towers. Illuminated at night, the towering trees serve as resting and meeting points for visitors.
Lamp Beside the Golden Door / Gustavo Prado
Named after the poem by Emma Lazarus, which is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, the work is a giant, undulating tower constructed using over 250 mirrors. Referencing themes of migration, Lamp Beside the Golden Door captures fragments of light as the day progresses.
“Is this what brings things into focus?” / Joanne Taham, Tom O’Sullivan
Touted as Coachella’s largest art installation to date, “Is This What Brings Things Into Focus” is a tableau of strange-shaped animal figures with monumental bodies and vividly patterned skins. Rising to six stories, these massive characters invite participants into a spatial experience, functioning as both sculpture and architecture.
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