marc fornes activates a pastoral pocket in knoxville
Artist and architect MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY completes a sculptural aluminum installation, Pier 865, within an historic park in Knoxville, Tennessee. The work sits within an established green space near Knoxville’s Old Town neighborhood, extending an invitation to step away from the street and move toward open air. Its position on a cast-in-place concrete pier gives visitors an elevated view across the park’s foliage, and lends a shift in perspective that feels at once urban and pastoral.
Marc Fornes designed Pier 865 with a sensitivity to this layered context, shaping an intervention that reads as part lookout, part sheltered landscape. The pier stretches outward with a gentle rise, forming a continuous surface of benches, ledges, and subtle changes in height that guide visitors toward the canopy above.
the sculpture lands in a park near Knoxville’s Old Town neighborhood | images © Steve Kroodsma
pier 865: a lightweight aluminum construction
Marc Fornes and his studio THEVERYMANY worked with their familiar system of painted aluminum, assembling palm-sized strips into a lightweight structure in Knoxville, Tennessee. Each strip is pre-folded and coated in a gradient of greens, blues, and butter yellow to create a surface that aligns with the sky and the surrounding trees without slipping into literal mimicry.
Up close, the texture of these assembled facets offers a tactile field of seams and curves, and the canopy’s form shifts as visitors move through it. From ground level, Pier 865 reads as a growing formation rising from the concrete. From above, its continuous loops and long spans reveal a more directional geometry.
Pier 865 introduces a new viewpoint in an historic Knoxville park | images © Steve Kroodsma
sculptural public space lands in tennessee
The Marc Fornes-designed canopy rests on five slender supports which grow into three distinct wings that extend over the pier in Knoxville, Tennessee. Their arrangement generates shaded pockets where people gather, while the forward-reaching loop draws others toward its farthest point. One of the wings lifts to form a flexible stage-like area for performances and small events.
This interplay between the pier and the canopy gives the work a sense of movement grounded in structure. Openings frame views toward the mountains, while the shifting colors overhead temper the daylight. Visitors experience Pier 865 as a sequence of thresholds — sometimes exposed, sometimes sheltered — each calibrated through the project’s twisting geometries.
Though contemporary in appearance, the sculpture aligns with a long cultural lineage within this Tennessee park, which has served as a local gathering place since the mid-1980s. That legacy informs the project’s emphasis on community space open to the public.
visitors experience a sequence of shaded and open spaces beneath the canopy | images © Steve Kroodsma
the sculpture occupies a cast concrete pier that extends gently into the landscape | images © Steve Kroodsma
the lightweight aluminum canopy supported by slender legs | images © Steve Kroodsma
painted aluminum strips create a gradient that draws from the foliage and sky | image © Keith Isaacs
the structure offers a sculptural place for public gathering | image © Keith Isaacs
color shifts and curved surfaces shape a changing spatial experience | images © Steve Kroodsma
project info:
name: Pier 865
architect: MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY | @theverymany
location: Knoxville, Tennessee
commissioner: City of Knoxville
photography: © Steve Kroodsma | @photo.kroo, © Keith Isaacs | @keithisaacsphoto
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