Boston Flora

Tag: Kotzen Meeting Center

  • Saturday, February 19, 1:30 pm – Nature Revisited

    The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Landscape Visions Lectures continue Saturday, February 19, beginning at 1:30 pm in the Kotzen Meeting Center, Lefavour Hall, Simmons College, with Amale Andraos, co-founder of WORKac, NYC, speaking on Nature Revisited.

    Today, in the face of global urbanization, exploding population, and shrinking resources, architecture, cities, and nature are at a crossroads. Moving beyond the binary—white or green, architecture or landscape, urban or rural—we must ask how we can reinvent nature for the twenty-first century. Andraos examines recent projects by WORKac that shed light on the current situation and suggest a new course for the future.

    Based in New York City, WORKac develops architectural and urban projects that engage culture and consciousness, nature and artificiality, surrealism and pragmatism. WORKac is involved in projects at all scales, ranging from a master plan for the new BAM cultural district in Brooklyn, to a single family villa in Inner Mongolia, China. Recent completed projects include the installation ‘Public Farm 1’ at PS1/MoMA and the new headquarters for Diane von Furstenberg. Current work includes the new Kew Gardens Hills Library in Queens, the extension of the Clark Art Institute at Mass MoCA, a new Children’s Museum for the Arts, and the first Edible Schoolyard New York City with Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Foundation.

    Amale Andraos is a visiting professor at Princeton University’s School of Architecture and has taught at numerous institutions including Harvard and Columbia Universities, the University of Pennsylvania, Parsons School of Design, and the American University in Beirut. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon. She has lived in Saudi Arabia, France, Canada and the Netherlands prior to moving to New York in 2002. She currently serves on the Architectural League of New York’s Board of Directors.  Tickets ($15 general public, $12 seniors, $5 members, students free) are available on line at www.gardenermuseum.org.  You will also find directions to the Kotzen Meeting Center on the site.

  • Saturday, January 22, 1:30 pm – 100 Gardens: Conceptual Gardens and New Landscapes

    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.