Grinnell Crossroads, 2020
Walter Hood, Hood Design Studio
Site-specific installation
Commissioned by Grinnell College
Grinnell Crossroads welcomes people to the community by honoring the past and providing a space of respite in the present. Located on an empty lot at the intersection of Highways 6 and 146 in Grinnell, the installation is inspired by the foundations and walls of two homes and a carriage house that originally stood on this site. The diagonal lattice walls evoke local wooden covered bridges and fences. Visitors circulate on paths that echo walkways at Grinnell College, moving through the ghost houses. Grinnell Crossroads celebrates the crossing and intersecting lives and histories that compose Grinnell.
Walter Hood is the winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2019 and numerous other awards. The work routes visitors between this site and campus, inviting participants to uncover remnants of Grinnell’s past to bring them into the present. Hood combined collective exploration with archival research to create Grinnell Crossroads, activating a once-vacant lot with memory and life.