Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard

  • Saturday, October 29, 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm – Dia de los Muertos Evening Celebration

    Celebrate the Day of the Dead with a festive benefit evening of music, food, and community. Remember departed ones in front of this year’s Día de los Muertos altar, savor traditional Mexican food, and enjoy lively Mexican music, at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, 11 Divinity Avenue in Cambridge. Co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston and the Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean Program at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University.

    Tickets are only available online at https://www.peabody.harvard.edu/Day-of-the-Dead-2016 and must be purchased in advance. Purchase tickets: $20 members/$25 nonmembers.  Complimentary event parking available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage from 5:00-11:00 PM.

  • Thursday, October 6, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Pioneering New Territory

    The Harvard University Graduate School of Design presents its Frederick Law Olmsted Lecture on Thursday, October 6, from 6:30 – 8:30 in the Gund Piper Auditorium.  The featured speaker is Peter Latz, who will give a talk entitled Pioneering New Territory.  Peter Latz studied landscape architecture at the Technical University of Munich. He is best known for his emphasis on reclamation and conversion of former industrialized landscapes. Retired today, he was an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and was also a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

    Latz once noted in a foreword for the book Visionary Gardens by Ernst Cramer that the overall of landscape architecture could be applied in abstract rules. “The beauty of nature lies within the essence and effect of plants and materials.”  The lecture is free and open to the public.

  • Tuesday, June 28, 8:00 am – 6:30 pm, and Wednesday, June 29, 8:00 am – 4:45 pm – Reduce and Recover: Save Food For People

    On June 28 & 29, the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic will host  Reduce and Recover: Save Food For People at the Harvard Law School in Cambridge. Join the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and RecyclingWorks Massachusetts for an action-oriented conference.

    This two-day event will convene entrepreneurs, practitioners, policymakers, and enthusiasts to further a public dialogue on reaching EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s national food waste reduction goal of 50% by 2030.

    The conference will focus on the top two tiers of EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy, which prioritizes actions people can take to reduce and recover wasted food: “source reduction” and “feed hungry people.” Speakers will highlight innovative solutions from New England and across the nation to reduce wasted food and recover edible food for people. Plenary speakers will include:

    Jesse Fink, Trustee, Fink Family Foundation
    Dana Gunders, Staff Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council
    Karen Hanner, Managing Director Manufacturing Product Sourcing, Feeding America
    Martha Minow, Morgan and Helen Chu Professor of Law and Dean, Harvard Law School
    Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
    Doug Rauch, Founder and President, Daily Table
    Curt Spalding, Regional Administrator, EPA New England, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
    Mathy Stanislaus, Assistant Administrator, Office of Land and Emergency Management, Environmental Protection Agency
    Tristram Stuart, Founder, Feedback
    Martin Suuberg, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection

    To register, and for complete information, visit http://www.chlpi.org/food-law-and-policy/reduce-and-recover-save-food-for-people/

  • Sunday, May 1, 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm – Bird Nest Botany

    Birds’ nests are the architectural wonders of the animal kingdom, constructed mostly of plant materials.

    In Judith Sumner’s May 1st slide-illustrated lecture at the Arnold Arboretum, beginning at 2:30, we will explore various types of nests and the botanical materials used in their construction. When incorporated into nest structure, stems, leaves, and fibers have anatomical and structural properties that defy harsh weather and rigorous use.

    We will also examine the biologically active plant material used to line nests, which may have antibiotic and insecticidal properties. Join us for a fascinating look at nest form and function, with particular attention to plant structures and their adaptive re-use in nest construction. Fee $5 for Arboretum members, $10 for nonmembers.  Register at www.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277. Image from www.unschoolrules.com.

  • Wednesday, March 16, 10:00 am – A Visit to ‘Les Quatres Vents’: Frank Cabot’s Quebec Garden

    Wednesday, March 16, 10:00 am – A Visit to ‘Les Quatres Vents’: Frank Cabot’s Quebec Garden

    Frank Cabot, founder of the Garden Conservancy, was a plant collector of the first order. At the Garden Club of the Back Bay’s March meeting on March 16 at 10 am, Sally Muspratt will present an illustrated lecture of his showcase Quebec garden, which she revisited in May, 2015. The meeting will held at The College Club of Boston, 44 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. Garden Club members will receive written notice of the meeting, which will be followed by an optional lunch.

    Sally McGuire Muspratt holds a Graduate Certificate in Landscape Design from Radcliffe College (1993), a certificate in Landscape Maintenance from UMass Extension (2002), an M.A. from Newnham College, Cambridge and a BA from Harvard. In 2010 she was accredited as an Organic Land Care Professional by the Northeast Organic Farming Association, and in 2011 as a Professional Landscape Designer by the APLD, the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (certification #344).

    Sally gardens in West Roxbury, MA and La Malbaie, Quebec. She serves on the Board of the Arboretum Park Conservancy and on the advisory committees of The Kelleher Rose Garden and the Park Overseers of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. She is past President of the Board of Cogdesign, past Chairman of the Landscape Design Study Classes, the Landscape Design Council of the National Council of State Garden Clubs, and the Civic Development Committee for the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts. If you are not a member but wish to attend please email info@bostonflora.com.

  • Saturday, December 5, 2:00 pm – Science of the Magical

    Can bird migrations foretell the future? Do phases of the moon hold sway over our lives? Are there sacred springs with curative powers? What is the best way to brew a love potion? In this Harvard Museum of Natural History interdisciplinary talk filled with tales of adventure, science journalist Matt Kaplan, author of The Science of Monsters and Science of the Magical, will explore the rich, lively, and surprising reality behind some of the magical objects, places, and ideas that infuse ancient and modern myths.

    This program takes place Saturday, December 5 at 2 pm and is located at Haller Hall (enter at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street). Free parking is available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage. Free with museum admission.

  • Thursday, December 3, 6:00 pm – Our National Parks and the “Fairsted School”: An Enduring Legacy

    The Olmsted firm is famous for the design of hundreds of municipal parks and other landscapes. The achievements of Olmsted and his successors in scenic preservation are less well understood, but park design and scenic preservation were both aspects of the practice of landscape architecture Olmsted developed in the second half of the nineteenth century. This December 3 talk explores the role of the “Fairsted School” of landscape architecture and its influence on scenic preservation and the design of state and national park systems through the twentieth century. The program will begin with a 6 pm reception followed by the lecture at 7, at the Wheelock College Brookline Campus, 43 Hawes Street, corner of Hawes and Monmouth Streets in Brookline. Reservations are required. Call 617-566-1689, x 265, or reserve online at http://friendsoffairsted.org/programs/register/

    Ethan Carr, PhD, FASLA, is a landscape historian and preservationist specializing in public landscapes. He has taught at the Harvard GSD, the University of Virginia, and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is a professor. He has written two award-winning books, Wilderness by Design (1998) and Mission 66: Modernism and the National Park Dilemma (2007), and is the volume editor of Volume 8 of the Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, The Early Boston Years, 1882-1890 (2013).

    Limited street parking is available. Public parking is not allowed in the Wheelock parking lot. Venue is easily accessible by MBTA Green Line “C” (Hawes Street) or “D” (Longwood) trains.

  • Monday, March 23, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – China, Biodiversity, and the Global Environment

    China boasts not only the largest percentage of the world’s population (19%) but also one of the Earth’s richest, most diverse floras. Yet its economic rise as an industrial nation and its population density, with the associated environmental degradation, put this biodiversity at risk. Add in climate change and it is a recipe for disaster. Professor Peter Raven, a leading botanist, advocate for the conservation of biodiversity, and one of the co-editors of The Flora of China, a joint Chinese-American census of all the plants of China, is uniquely qualified to assess the consequences of over-population, industrial pollution, economic inequalities, and natural resource exploitation in China—consequences not limited to that country but affecting the entire global environment. In this Director’s Lecture Series talk on Monday, March 23, from 7 – 8:30 at the Arnold Arboretum, he will consider what it means for humanity to lose thousands of species to extinction, many before they are known or described by scientists. He’ll present his thoughts on reversing environmental degradation in China and around the globe and what is required to move all people toward an ethic of conservation and securing sustainability. Free, but registration required at http://my.arboretum.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=1.

  • Wednesday, March 4, 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm – Charles Eliot and the Modernization of Boston’s Landscape

    Charles Eliot was the son of Harvard President Charles William Eliot, a visionary landscape architect, and protégé of Frederick Law Olmsted. He inspired the 1891 Trustees of Public Reservations — what is now the oldest regional land trust in the world — and had a central role in shaping the Boston Metropolitan Park System. He was the guiding vision behind the transformation of the banks of Charles River in Cambridge and, although he did not live to see his plans reach fruition, his work accelerated the rescue of the Charles from a virtual sewer to one of the most picturesque features of region’s landscape. On Wednesday, March 4, from 5:30 – 7 pm, at the Massachusetts Historical Society offices at 1154 Boylston Street in Boston, Professor Anita Berizbeitia will talk about Eliot’s work and his legacy in landscape design.

    Anita Berrizbeitia is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture Degree Programs at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her research focuses on design theories of modern and contemporary landscape architecture, the productive aspects of landscapes, and Latin American cities and landscapes. Berrizbeitia has taught design theory and studio, most recently at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, where she was Associate Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. Her studios investigate innovative approaches to the conceptualization of public space, especially on sites where urbanism, globalization, and local cultural conditions intersect. From 1987 to 1993, she practiced with Child Associates, Inc., in Boston, where she collaborated on many award-winning projects. She was awarded the 2005/2006 Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, she studied architecture at the Universidad Simon Bolivar before receiving a BA from Wellesley College and an MLA from the GSD.

    The Landscape Architects series of the Massachusetts Historical Society has been made possible by the generous underwriting of Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects and is cosponsored by the Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Nichols House Museum. $10 fee (no charge for Fellows and Members of MHS, Mount Auburn Cemetery, and the Nichols House Museum.) Register online at https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/EventDetail.asp?cguid=76FBBAD5-59FC-442D-8347-A5AE40DBF561&eid=50858&sid=30B92800-1EE0-40A8-94EC-6D7F80E0E8E9

  • Saturday, March 7, 9:30 am – 12:00 noon – Biodiversity in the Avian World

    Who would guess that parrots are closely related to songbirds, or that falcons are only distantly related to their look-alikes, hawks and eagles? How is it that hummingbirds have the rare ability (in the avian world) to detect sweet tastes? Explore the newly renovated Birds of the World gallery with Harvard doctoral students Allison Shultz and Maude Baldwin and consider the suite of adaptations that allows birds to live across the globe, even in the most extreme environments. Hear about the role of genomics in deciphering the bird family tree, the surprising relationships this has revealed, and the special abilities birds have evolved that help them exploit their environment. This Harvard Museum of Natural History adult education class will be held Saturday, March 7 from 9:30 – noon at the Museum, 26 Oxford Street in Cambridge. Fee: $35 Museum members/$40 nonmembers. Advance registration required. Register online at http://reservations.hmsc.harvard.edu/Info.aspx?EventID=11.