The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Landscape Visions Lectures continue this winter at the Kotzen Meeting Center, Lefavour Hall, Simmons College, during the construction of the Gardner Museum annex.  The opening event for 2011 will take place at 1:30 pm on Saturday, January 22, with Alexander Reford, founder of the International Garden Festival in Quebec, speaking on 100 Gardens: Conceptual Gardens and New Landscapes.

Every year, designers create ephemeral gardens on small sites with limited budgets for Quebec’s International Garden Festival. Hampered by few other constraints, they have complete liberty to experiment and innovate. The resulting conceptual gardens convey a message, encourage participation, and invite vigorous debate rather than quiet contemplation.  Reford presents selections from the gardens exhibited since 2000 and reflects on the ways they reinvigorate the traditional garden, offering new experiences to visitors and new ways of thinking about and designing gardens.

Schooled as an historian, Alexander Reford is an honorary member of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects. In 2009, he was awarded the Frederick-Todd Prize by the Association des Architectes Paysagistes du Québec. In the same year, the Montréal Botanical Garden bestowed the Henry-Teuscher Prize on Alexander Reford and Elsie Reford (posthumous) for their contribution to horticulture in Québec.  Tickets are $15 for the general public, $12 for seniors, $5 for members, and free for students.  Will-call tickets will be available for pickup at the Kotzen Meeting Center.  Tickets will be available for purchase on the day of each lecture at the Gardener Museum’s front desk, pending availability.  Please note that capacity is limited, and advance ticket purchase is strongly recommended.  You may order on line at www.gardnermuseum.org, where you will also find a map directing you to the site.