There is something profoundly poetic in watching sculpture move by invisible forces. That is the magic of Penny Saunders’ Restless Temple, and now, thanks to the hard work of Alan Munden and his team, it has been restored to its full, swaying glory. You can watch it live here.
A Temple Born of Wind and Balance
Temples, in the classical sense, are static: built of stone, monumental, unwavering. Restless Temple was conceived to upend that tradition. As Penny Saunders writes on the official site,
“This temple moves between the powers of wind and gravity. Its columns are hollow, just a light cedar skin. The engineered strength is similar to that of a ship’s mast. A core of tensioned steel runs from temple top to the counterweights at the bottom.”
Saunders began thinking about the piece around the year 2000, as a monument to our ambitious yet precarious ingenuity, always at the mercy of the forces of nature. Over fifteen years of research, collaboration, testing and iteration followed before the structure finally found its home at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens in 2015.
Though a permanent installation, Restless Temple embraces the impermanence of all things. Saunders has described it as a work “built to move, flex, decay, and evolve” – a sculpture that accepts entropy as part of its being.
Anatomy of a Moving Monument
What makes Restless Temple so extraordinary is its fusion of art, architecture, and engineering. Fourteen hollow cedar columns form its frame, each a light timber shell wrapped around a core of tensioned steel. Beneath the earth, concrete counterweights balance the structure, allowing the entire temple to sway, up to forty-five degrees in winds of around sixty miles per hour.
Lighting designer Eleanor Bell devised a scheme that reveals both the temple’s body and its heart. Instead of simply lighting it from below, she illuminated the interior and the mechanisms beneath, so that its movement can be seen even in the dark. The result is a sculpture that glows like a living organism, its movement both eerie and mesmerising.
Importantly, Saunders sees the slow wear of time not as damage but as narrative. Moss, lichen and weathering become part of the story, signs that the work continues to exist in dialogue with the elements.
A Work of Wonder and Warning
Restless Temple speaks to the human condition, our striving for permanence in the face of the inevitability of change. It is a meditation on fragility, balance and time. The interplay of wind, gravity and steel creates a slow, rhythmic kind of choreography.
Placed high above Mount’s Bay, with sweeping views towards St Michael’s Mount, the sculpture converses with its setting. It moves as the weather moves, a barometer of unseen forces, an embodiment of Cornwall’s restless air.
In 2018, The Guardian named Restless Temple among the ten best outdoor art installations in the world, recognising its daring marriage of engineering and emotion. Visitors often describe it as meditative, unsettling, or quietly moving, an experience that lingers long after you’ve walked away.
Restoration and Renewal
Exposure to wind, rain and salt air inevitably takes its toll. Over time, the sculpture needed careful attention, and this year, that attention came in the form of restoration by Alan Munden and his team. Their work has brought the temple back to life, reinstating its delicate balance and its capacity to sway once more.
This restoration is a celebration of both art and craft, a testament to collaboration, care, and the belief that art should live and breathe, not stand still. The temple once again leans into the Cornish wind, a symbol of endurance through movement.
You can even witness its gentle dance in real time via a live stream, connecting its quiet motion on a Cornish hilltop to viewers around the world.
A Living Temple
Now, restored and restless once again, Penny Saunders’ remarkable temple continues its dialogue with wind and time, a reminder that even our grandest structures are subject to the elements, and that beauty often lies in movement, not stillness.
The Restless Temple can be viewed without going into the Gardens, taking pride of place on the lawn above the Gallery, Kitchen, Shop & Nursery.