Set within a new waterfront park in Old Town Alexandria, Mirror Mirror stands as both destination and marker—visible from afar while inviting close engagement. Measuring twenty-five feet in diameter and eight feet high, the open circular structure forms a space visitors can enter, circle, and inhabit. Like a lighthouse, it operates as both a place to look outward and a beacon that draws attention to itself.

Conceived as a pavilion in the round, Mirror Mirror has no fixed front or back. Its form and materiality reference the Fresnel lens used in Alexandria’s historic Jones Point Lighthouse, an optical technology that gathered and projected light through concentric prisms. This lineage informs both the geometry and behavior of the installation, grounding a contemporary experience in local history.

Clad inside and out with mirrored surfaces, the artwork fragments and recombines its surroundings through reflection and refraction. The exterior acts as a largely monochromatic mirror, capturing the river, Old Town, pedestrians, and sky, allowing the structure to dissolve into its context. Inside, the experience shifts: mirrored surfaces tinted across the full color spectrum create an immersive field of layered reflections that multiply movement, light, and color.

Sound introduces a final layer of interaction. Embedded LEDs respond to voices and ambient noise, transforming sound into pulses of light. As the lights activate, exterior panels shift from mirrored to transparent while the interior remains reflective, producing a forest of light and a sensation of infinite depth. Through movement, sound, and shifting reflection, Mirror Mirror invites visitors to shape their own experience—folding city, waterfront, and body into a continuously changing whole.

Photos: Alan Tansey

More about the process:
Interactive Model
Photos of the installation