The Unity Tunnel Mosaic Art Installation

A 160-foot underpass used to be the kind of place people walked through without a second glance. Now with more than 689,000 individual placed tile pieces, it’s a monument that stops them in their tracks.

The Unity Tunnel in East Austin has turned the stretch near the Wishbone Bridge at Longhorn Shores in Town Lake Metro Park into a 3,000-square-foot mosaic mural. With help from Daltile, the Austin community built it piece by piece to create something personal and unique to their beloved city.

One Artist's Idea Became a Community Effort

Muralist Reginald C. Adams set out to build more than a mural, he wanted a landmark that could connect neighborhoods and put Austin’s history and values on full display. So instead of handing the work off to a team, he opened it up to the city. Thousands of volunteers picked up tile and got to work alongside the Austin Mosaic Workshop, turning the donated tile into something for the whole community.

Daltile donated the mosaic tile behind the entire installation, from special order tile to many colors from our Keystones™ and Color Wheel Mosaic™ collections. That tile became more than 50 distinct scenes stretched across over 1,000 linear feet, each one capturing a different slice of the city.

Outdoor Art Needs Tile That Can Take a Hit

A mural like this isn’t protected behind glass. It lives outdoors, exposed to direct sunlight, rain, changing weather and the constant activity of one of Austin’s busiest pedestrian routes. This type of exposure called for tile that is built to handle its environment without compromising the artwork itself. Outdoor-grade porcelain, ceramic and glass mosaics were selected for the Unity Tunnel for their durability and weather resistance, helping the mural maintain its color, detail and visual impact for years to come. 

The installation also shows just how far tile can go beyond traditional applications. In the hands of an artist and a community of volunteers, mosaic tile became more than a surface material, it became a medium for telling the story of an entire community.

A Partnership Built to Last

The Unity Tunnel came to life through a collaboration between the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places and ACME programs, Austin Mosaic Workshop, artist Reginald C. Adams and Daltile. Each partner brought something essential to the project, from artistic vision and community engagement to the tile materials that helped bring thousands of individual pieces together into one cohesive work of art.

The result is more than an underpass between two sides of a neighborhood. The Unity Tunnel has become a destination, transforming an everyday pedestrian route into an immersive expression of unity, inclusion, and equality for everyone who walks through it.