In 1960 construction tore through the Belknap Park area in preparation for the U.S. 131 highway. Initially there were plans for recreational facilities on a scarred hillside in the park, but the plans were never realized. In 1973 Robert Morris offered a remedy to the hillside with the unveiling of his "X" Project during the Grand Rapids Art Museum's exhibition, Sculpture Off the Pedestal, a project of the Women's Committee of the Museum. The Committee commissioned the environmental work which was dedicated on October 19, 1974 with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Michigan Council for the Arts, the Women's Committee, and the City of Grand Rapids. Consisting of two linear asphalt walkways that cross on a hill, the piece is concerned with the connection between man and nature and the effects of time and seasonal change upon that relationship. The work is intended to be physically explored and viewed from above, below and within.

Born in Kansas City, Robert Morris studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, the University of Kansas City, the California School of Fine Arts, before receiving his graduate degree from Hunter College in New York. Morris initially studied engineering before turning to art and played a central role in defining three principal artistic movements of the 1960s and 1970s: Minimalist sculpture, Process Art and Earthworks. In his early Minimalist works, Morris exhibited entire rooms of nondescript wooden architectural elements, later exploring more industrial materials such as aluminum and steel mesh. In the late 1960s and 1970s his Minimalist works gave way to the soft materials of his experiments with Process Art. Primary among these was felt, which he piled, stacked, and hung from the wall in a series of works that investigated the effects of gravity and stress on ordinary materials. Subsequent projects included indoor installation of such unorthodox materials as dirt and threadwaste which eventually led to his monumental outdoor Earthworks.