Mindbender
— — the loop the lights remember.
Not only on a wall.
“A triple-loop steel coaster running inside the Galaxyland amusement park at West Edmonton Mall. Built by Anton Schwarzkopf, opened in 1986, and for years held as the largest indoor coaster of its kind. The track climbs into the rafters and folds back through three vertical loops above the food court lights.
Mindbender, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Mindbender sits inside Galaxyland, the indoor amusement park on the north end of West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta. The mall opened in stages from 1981 to 1985 and remains one of the largest in North America by leasable area. Galaxyland anchors the east wing. The coaster's track is steel, painted lavender and yellow, and rises to roughly 44 metres inside the climate-controlled hall, taller than the surrounding food court, parking ramps, and skylights. Edmonton sits at roughly 53° north, well into the long-winter latitudes that explain why an indoor coaster was built here at all.
The ride is included with a Galaxyland day pass or an individual ticket; the park is open daily, with hours that follow the mall's. Riders must be at least 122 centimetres tall and free of any condition that rules out high-G loops. The full circuit takes a bit under two minutes: a chain-lift to the top of the hall, a long drop into the first vertical loop, then two more loops in quick sequence before the brake run returns you under the lights. Photography is allowed without flash.
Mindbender opened in 1986, designed by Anton Schwarzkopf and his firm in Münsterhausen, West Germany. Schwarzkopf was one of the steel-coaster pioneers of the postwar era; his rides emphasised smooth, mathematically tight loops over raw airtime, and the Mindbender's three back-to-back inversions were considered, at the time, an engineering showpiece. The track remains the original 1986 hardware, refurbished in stages, and the Edmonton ride is among the few major Schwarzkopf installations still operating on its original layout in North America.