Rodin Museum Opening
Community leaders and art lovers recently came together to celebrate the rejuvenated gardens surrounding the Rodin Museum located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. OLIN’s design for the gardens enhances and amplifies the original 1929 plans by architects Paul Cret and Jacques Gréber, placing special focus on the relationship of the Rodin Museum to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
“Our goal for the Rodin Museum was to restore the symmetry of the formal French plan, but also to reunify the whole block as a Parkway garden,” explained OLIN partner Susan Weiler, “so what we have now achieved is a garden within a garden within a Parkway. We introduced more transparency throughout the site and accentuated the seasonality, so the garden is visually interesting all the time.”
Rejuvenating the entire site with new plantings and much-needed practical improvements, OLIN utilized Cret and Gréber’s devotion to formality. The garden’s parterres enable the eye to register the symmetry of the courtyard and the significant changes in elevation in the garden, allowing visitors to experience its many elements. Notes Susan, “As we were designing the garden, we didn’t see it as divided into sections. It’s all about movement through the entire space – up the stairs, through the gate, into the courtyard, up to the museum. Visitors can take in everything from the east and west gardens to the stairs to the parapet.”
OLIN’s design pays homage to the simplicity and complexity of both Gréber and Cret, who, according to Susan, “understood the integration of architecture and landscape as well as boldness and detail,” evidenced by Gréber‘s Parkway design as one grand gesture that utilizes repeating elements of small pools and hedges to define smaller spaces. “I appreciate the fact that they were trying to make Philadelphia the city it should be. They set the framework for the city. Now, it is coming to fruition.”
Read more at artnet.com
