April 5, 2022 - Boston Flora

Tuesday, April 12, 5:15 pm – 6:30 pm – Pipe Dreams: The Pursuit of Desalination and the Promise of a Water-Abundant Future in the 1950s and 1960s, Online

April 5, 2022 by Boston Flora

Driven by the strong conviction that water resources needed to be managed, controlled, and used in a rational manner, fears about not being able to meet present and future water needs triggered and justified the proliferation of large water infrastructure projects in the post-WWII period—and also the pursuit of desalination. Its potential as a new, untapped source of fresh water carried promises of modernization and development, and especially appealed to governments looking to develop, diversify, and decentralize sources of supply. By uncovering how several countries and international organizations imagined the potential of desalination, and tried to jumpstart its widespread adoption, shows how the story of desalination adds new layers to our understanding of the development era. This Massachusetts Historical Society lecture with Elizabeth Hameeteman of Boston University will take place Tuesday, April 12 at 5:15 pm, online. Register to attend online

The Environmental History Seminar invites you to join the conversation. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper. Learn more.

Please note, this is an online event hosted on the video conference platform, Zoom. Registrants will receive a confirmation message with attendance information.

Monday, April 11, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm – The Marquis de Laborde’s Mereville & the Princesse de Monaco’s Betz, Online

April 5, 2022 by Boston Flora

The Jardin Anglais movement culminated in two vast and extravagant landscape gardens created on the eve of the Revolution, the Marquis de Laborde’s Méréville and the Princesse de Monaco’s Betz. Created on vast sites with essentially unlimited budgets, both landscapes offered a succession of arcadian, and lyrical scenes punctuated by unsettling confrontations with the force of ‘untamed nature’ and melancholic ruins. Laborde and Monaco would bring together France’s foremost artistic talents – Hubert Robert, Pajou, Belanger and Brongniart – to create these total immersive artworks. While Betz is currently inaccessible, a forthcoming exhibition at Chantilly will explore the story of its owner and her remarkable creation. Méréville, after long years of ruin and neglect, which endowed the garden with its own poetry, is currently the subject of one of the most ambitious and costly garden restoration projects on the continent. In this final Gardens Trust lecture on April 11 at 2 pm, Gabriel Wick will speak on this garden, part of the Jardin Anglais movement. £5 Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after and will be available for 1 week.

Gabriel Wick is a lecturer at the Paris campus of New York University, and an independent researcher and curator. He has authored a number of monographs and articles on 18th-century French landscape gardens, including La Roche-Guyon, the domain of the Noailles, Monceau, Méréville, Betz and Rambouillet. He is currently curating a permanent exhibition at Rambouillet on its Jardin Anglais and advising the Fondation Chambrun on the restoration of Lafayette’s Lagrange. He received his doctorate in history from the University of London (QMUL) and holds a master’s in landscape architecture from UC Berkeley and historic landscape conservation from the École Nationale Superieure d’Architecture – Versailles.