LOTUS are smart flowers which fold open in response to light.

Inspired by nature, the installation unfolds itself and creates a play of light and movement. LOTUS OCULUS activates the architecture of the historical Modern Art Gallery in Milan and is commissioned by Bulgari.

Winner of A’Design Gold Award and Media Architecture Award Denmark.

The specially developed material and design by Studio Roosegaarde is inspired both by nature and the radical use of material in the history of Bulgari. LOTUS OCULUS also pays homage to the grandeur of the Pantheon and continues this legacy by creating an organic architecture of movement and shadows. This dynamic dialogue is what Daan Roosegaarde calls ‘Techno-Poetry.’


The LOTUS series started in 2010 as an ongoing research into smart surfaces. Roosegaarde describes this tangible connection between light and material as “a metamorphosis of nature and technology”. In search of a new harmony between people and the environment, LOTUS OCULUS is a work of art and a pilot for a more organic type of architecture.


LOTUS OCULUS for Bulgari at Modern Art Gallery, Via Palestro, 16, 20121 Milano MI, Italy at Milan Design Week 5-10 September 2021.

Previously LOTUS DOME premiered in the 17th-century Sainte Marie Madeleine Church in Lille, France as a living dome. LOTUS MODEL is a more compact lotus flower which blooms in reaction to light.