On Saturday, an excited, sold-out crowd oohed and aahed as more than 100,000 dominos fell in the West Court of the National Building Museum. A team of builders led by domino artist and YouTuber Lily Hevesh spent over a week setting up a meticulous arrangement of multi-colored tiles along the floor, as part of the artist’s two-week residency at the DC museum. A week prior, the team had spent days arranging a 33-foot, 3-inch tower in the building’s main hall that broke the world record for tallest domino structure. But what goes up must come down, and the free-to-attend “topple” event was a much-anticipated finale for Hevesh’s Destination Domino residency.
The elaborate network of dominos featured a variety of domino “tricks” and multiple local references, including a Metro map that knocked into a pylon tower, and a starlit skyline of national monuments.
After remarks from museum president Aileen Fuchs and Hevesh, two young audience members were selected from a raffle to push over the first tile, setting off the lengthy chain reaction. The topple lasted over 8 minutes—you can watch it below. Certain visually-striking moments in the run garnered huge responses from the crowd, such a series of flowers that appeared to bloom as the dominos cascaded. At two points along the massive trail, the flow was temporarily disrupted when a faulty domino failed to knock over the next. In both instances, a team member was close by to get the dominos falling again. See the full set-up and some mid-fall photos below, as well as a video.
