Calder Gardens on the Parkway announces opening date
The sculpture park is a tribute to the innovator of the mobile, though leaders haven't arrived at a list of works that will be on site at its opening.
Calder Gardens has an opening date. Philadelphia’s long-sought shrine to sculptor Alexander Calder will open its doors to the public Sept. 21, officials announced Tuesday, along with details of a membership program.
The sculpture garden promises to add the first new major attraction to the cultural critical mass of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway since the relocation of the Barnes Foundation in 2012.
Leaders have portrayed it less of a museum than, in their words, a “place for art, culture, environmental awareness, and introspection.” With a structure designed by Herzog & de Meuron and landscaping by Piet Oudolf, the site will host a rotating schedule of art curated by the Calder Foundation.
Calder, who died in 1976 at age 78, produced work in various media, but is best known for sculpture and pioneering the mobile. A list of works that will be on view at the museum’s opening has not yet been finalized, a spokesperson for the project said.
Early Tuesday morning, the wedge of land between the Parkway and the ravine of the Vine Street Expressway was still a busy construction site. Caissons on the perimeter looked freshly poured while plantings were already going in.
In January, the Calder announced that it had hired a senior director of programs, Juana Berrio, to oversee operations as well as programs going beyond art.
“I’m hoping to include practices related to wellness, to the environment, and to have a different perspective to nature at large,” she told The Inquirer. It will be a place where people can experience Calder’s work in “an environment for introspection.”
Memberships will start at $98 annually, officials said, which brings unlimited free admission to both Calder Gardens and its “operational partner” across the street, the Barnes Foundation.
Otherwise, individual tickets will be $18 for adults, $16 for seniors, $5 for children 13 to 18, and free for children 12 and younger.
The Calder family left an artistic imprint on Philadelphia that spanned generations. Wags are fond of a mnemonic device recalling a string of the artists’ notable contributions: father, son, and the holy ghost.
Looking out the Parkway from the middle of the city, Alexander Milne Calder (the father) designed City Hall’s sculpture, including William Penn on top. Alexander Stirling Calder (his son) was the artist for the sculpture of the Swann Memorial Fountain in Logan Circle. And Alexander Calder (the grandson) designed Ghost, the mobile hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Great Stair Hall.
For more information, visit caldergardens.org.