Burning Man – festival, design, life concept?

Burning Man is now a world-famous festival in the Nevada desert for alternative lifestyles, temporary urban development and architecture, art, extreme clothing and intergenerational parties. The Burning Man design now includes an urban infrastructure with its own airport, hospital and a transportation system with collective art cars and bicycles for individual traffic. Cars must stay away from the festival and can only be used to get there.

One of the co-founders of the Burning Man Festival was the artist Larry Harvey (1948 – 2018). The Burning Man design was simple at the time of its founding in 1986: Harvey moved to Baker Beach on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in the northwest of San Francisco with around 20 friends, probably out of heartbreak. They partied so that Larry Harvey could forget his grief. Afterwards, the clique burned a wooden figure over two meters high and buried Larry Harvey’s grief with the ashes. Today, Burning Man is a professionally organized festival that attracts over 70,000 visitors from all over the world to Nevada in the USA. The ticket contingent is limited. Price per ticket? US$ 575 plus entertainment tax.

Burning Man takes place at the end of August and the beginning of September. The festival lasts nine days and ends on US Labor Day, the day of remembrance of the workers’ movement. This is always on the first Monday in September. The Burning Man Festival remained at Baker Beach until 1990. After that, it had to move. The number of visitors had grown steadily: from twenty participants in 1986, it had risen to over three hundred by 1989. The wooden doll, which was originally a larger-than-life 240 cm high, grew to 12 meters. The festival and the burning of the wooden figure on the beach near the town were now undesirable. In 1990, the festival organizers again erected a 12-metre-high wooden figure on Baker Beach, but it was no longer set on fire. A new location had been found for Burning Man. No one would feel disturbed there by parties, installations and a large fire: The Black Rock Desert. This desert is located in north-western Nevada on the lake bed of the prehistoric Lake Lahontan and covers an area of 30,044 km² – enough space to continue growing in the future.

The Burning Man Festival and Design first had to establish itself in the desert. From 1991 to 2000, the number of participants rose from a meagre 250 at the beginning to over 25,000 in 2000. The sculpture, which is traditionally transformed into a gigantic bonfire at the end of the festival, remained a constant 12 meters high during this time. In 1995, the temporary, once-a-year settlement in the middle of the desert was given the name “Black Rock City”. With an area of 18 square kilometers, it is the fourth largest city in Nevada for nine days. In 1998, the organizers introduced management structures and an orderly course was established. Cars and weapons were banned in “Black Rock City”, and the urbanized desert has had an airport since 2002. In 2003, the management issued a ban on dogs. Many “burners”, the festival participants, are barely clothed and enter pavilions and installations barefoot. Who wants to step in dog poo like that?

The City of Burning Man only exists for a few days. But during these days, you can do and get everything you need to live and, above all, chill out. In 2019, the year before the outbreak of Covid-19, the organizers counted over 78,000 participants. For around ten days, Black Rock City is a settlement that is slightly larger than Paderborn and slightly smaller than Wolfsburg in terms of population. However, it is more of a camp and nothing, apart from works of art and walk-in sculptural architecture, is built on high ground. The Burning Man design has an urban structure arranged radially around a center like Ebenezer Howard’s garden city – only due to its location, it is devoid of greenery.

The inhabitants of the temporary metropolis, the “burners”, stand for individuality, a peaceful, slightly hedonistic lifestyle with a penchant for neo-hippie style or imaginative costumes in a space age or queer look. Fun and liberal fun for all are also the purpose of the festival. The participants live like campers and cater for themselves. They also take care of their own waste disposal. Drinks are served at the artistically designed bars, sanitary facilities serve the entire giant community and a hospital is set up for medical care. Burning Man has a participatory and diverse character: the age groups, ethnicities and social groups are totally mixed. The negative side effects of many festivals and major events – violence, garbage and environmental pollution – are non-existent. The “burners” move through Black Rock City in art cars, the so-called “mutant vehicles”. This promotes community, communication and is more environmentally friendly than private transportation. This is only available for cyclists or pedestrians.

After nine days in Black Rock City, there are no traces of Burning Man in the desert. The city is completely dismantled and every “Burner” is obliged to take everything that belongs to them back with them. Because of its peaceful and liberal atmosphere, the Burning Man model has already been the subject of ethnographic studies and cultural studies research. It is understood as a utopian role model. The formation of community and identity as an alternative to the society “outside” is exemplary. In the “Black Rock City”, people are active, communicative and curious, imaginative and very tolerant for nine days. They then take this attitude to life out into the world.