Harmonist Labyrinth and Roofless Church

New Harmony was founded in 1814 by the Harmonie Society, a communal religious group led by George Rapp that left Pennsylvania for the Indiana frontier, built a planned town, and returned east in 1825. The Harmonist Labyrinth dates from that first community: a hedge labyrinth meant for meditation and reflection that decayed, was remade as a maze in the 1930s, and was reconstructed in 2008 to its original single-path form from archival records, with a small stone temple at its center. A block west, the Cathedral Labyrinth is a replica of the Chartres cathedral pattern maintained by the Robert Lee Blaffer Foundation, open daily.

The Roofless Church, commissioned by Jane Blaffer Owen and dedicated in 1960, is Philip Johnson's open-air interfaith church: a shingled dome held over a walled garden, open to the sky at its center and closed to no faith. The town was founded a second time in 1825 by Robert Owen's secular and scientific community, and both attempts remain legible in its museums and streets. The labyrinths and the church stay open, free, and quiet.

Visiting

Visit New Harmony lists both labyrinths (the Cathedral Labyrinth is open 7am to 11pm, no fee), and Historic New Harmony runs the state historic site tours Wednesday through Sunday.

Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roofless_church,_New_Harmony,_Indiana_1.JPG), CC BY-SA 3.0, Sarah Ewart.