Watch a Record-Breaking 100,000-Piece Domino Structure Fall in 8 Minutes

In the world of obscure jobs, being a domino artist-in-residence might be the most stress-inducing: One errant domino can send months of work prematurely toppling.

But when it works, it works spectacularly well. Recently, Lily Hevesh supervised the layout of a domino art installation with over 100,000 pieces at Washington’s National Building Museum. (Yes, she’s the resident domino creative there.) One section of the project stood 33 feet, 3 inches tall, making it the world's tallest domino structure, according to Guinness World Records. It went flawlessly, as you can see below:

According to My Modern Met, Hevesh’s ambitious project was part of her overall domino aesthetic, which aims to reveal detailed portraits upon toppling. In the video, you’re likely to spot segments that collapse into depictions of the Washington, D.C. skyline, the Mona Lisa, and flower arrangements. Owing to the complexity, it takes over 8 minutes for the final domino to fall.

In another installation, Hevesh rendered characters from the Super Mario Bros. franchise as part of a promotional push for 2023’s animated movie. It took 18,000 dominos.

In one of her more popular feats, Hevesh coordinated a domino structure in which the pieces appear to fall “up” a flight of stairs.

According to The Washington Post, Hevesh, 25, began her domino art at age 10, and garnered a YouTube following for her increasingly complex designs. (Her channel, Hevesh5, has since clocked over 1.8 billion views.)

“When you see the effects that the dominoes are creating by having that motion and kinetic energy, that’s where I think the real beauty of domino art comes out,” she told The Post.

Hevesh—who dropped out of college after a year to pursue dominos full-time—doesn’t use conventional dominos and their black-and-white color scheme. Instead, she has a proprietary piece that comes in various colors with a surface texture that reduces slippage.

Despite her experience and the specialized equipment, Hevesh isn’t immune to misfires. In 2016, she and a friend attempted to build a nearly 20-foot-tall domino tower. “We were 12 layers away from finishing, we were really close,” she told Glimmer. “I’m up on this ladder. My friend is holding the ladder, so it doesn’t fall over. I placed the domino on top and I pulled my hand back and suddenly I saw the top of the tower starting to shake. Eventually it just slowly tips, tips, and then it just completely crumbles down. We both just slowly watched it fall over, crumbling to the ground.”

The mishap, Hevesh said, was probably more popular than a successful attempt would have been. She compiled some of her other “fails” in the video below.

At the Museum, Hevesh prepares her works in view of visitors, but there’s no danger of third-party accidents; a small fence separates the dominos from any clumsy feet.

Read More About Art: