The Wave Organ, 1986

The sound you’re hearing is from an instrument built into the sea and operated entirely without human intervention. 

It’s called the Wave Organ. 

The Wave Organ was built in 1986 by artists Peter Richards and George Gonzalez. It is a tide-activated instrument built directly into the rocks of a jetty which faces the open sea beyond the San Francisco bay.

It’s an organ, but not quite what you’d expect when you imagine the instrument—there’s no musician to operate the keys or conductor to direct the score. The Wave Organ is an acoustic art installation constructed from PVC pipes, marble, granite, steel, and cement, forming winding tubes that curl from the jetty to the sea, designed to capture the sounds of ocean tides.

It is made up of 25 pipes, each at different elevations and angles with inexact widths and lengths, to generate unique and irreproducible sounds as the ocean waves rise and fall against the sculpture’s chambers. The organ’s pipes are built through the jetty, with one end sinking into the ocean and the other facing the sky—both exposed to the swells that beat against the artificial shore.

As the tide rises, water is pushed into the openings of these tubes, causing echoes to ripple through them. This pulse of water causes unexpectedly pressurized wind to be driven through the pipes, producing multi-octave gurgles, rumbles, and whistles, amplifying the hollow murmurs of the sea. As the tide ebbs and flows, crashing onto the jetty’s stones and pushing air and water through the sculpture, nature is the conductor of the orchestra.

The Wave Organ is a profound example of Land Art, following the tradition of the conceptual earth art movement of the 1960s and 70s. Designed to be both part of the landscape and an agent of (ephemeral) transformation, the Wave Organ is a site-specific intervention in the seafaring Bay Area. By subtly amplifying the ocean’s symphonic tones, the installation interprets the power of the natural world, creating a meaningful connection between the sea and its visitors. 

More than just a practical breakwater, this distinct jetty is specific to its location in its use of recycled stones, once part of a local cemetery. It is located in San Francisco’s Marina District, just east of the Palace of Fine arts and southeast of the Golden Gate Bridge. The installation is free and open to the public, and sounds best at high tide.