Landscape Rejuvenation Project: Rodin Museum and Garden
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the Fairmount Park Commission, will realize a design created by Olin Partnership to rejuvenate the Rodin Museum garden in the spirit of its original 1929 landscape plan. The project moves forward as part of a series of extensive improvements destined for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Announced on July 17, 2008, these improvements benefit from a funding consortium including the City of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the William Penn Foundation. For the Rodin Museum’s garden landscape rejuvenation project, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will also raise additional funds. Drawing from the original plans and correspondence of the building architect Paul Cret and landscape architect Jacques Gréber, the new plan for the Rodin Museum garden will enhance and amplify the original design. It will also accentuate the relationship of the building’s entrance to the Parkway and generally revitalize this urban oasis. Prepared in 2006, Olin Partnership’s design includes replacing old paving with new, long lasting materials and installing new paths and ramps, and improving garden accessibility. It respects and reinforces the strong symmetry of the original Gréber design. A new planting plan for the interior courtyard garden and the areas surrounding the museum will be implemented in close coordination with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The plan for the outer areas will create a vista to spotlight the courtyard and museum building from the Parkway. Plantings for this area include native species used in the original design: fragrant viburnum, honeysuckle, sweetshrub, summersweet, American beautyberry, sparkleberry holly, fothergilla, oak leaf hydrangea, and winter-blooming witch hazel. Above this shrub layer, a low canopy of flowering trees: saucer magnolias, serviceberry, white fringe tree, silver bell, and redbud. Within the interior courtyard, a formal perennial garden will offer rose, day lily, iris, liatris, red-hot poker, winter blooming hellebore with a wide variety of fragrance and seasonal display. Color, texture and variety of plants, changing throughout the seasons, will contribute to draw the visitor into the gardens year-round. The project will ensure that the Rodin Museum garden will remain a premier destination in Philadelphia and a jewel along the Parkway for years to come.Project Details
Interior Courtyard Garden
- Interior garden regrading, including enhanced accessibility for all pathways
- Repair and restoration of garden walls, stairs
- Replacement and restoration of all bluestone and stone fine paving
- Selective removal and pruning of shrubs outside
- Planting of trees, shrubs and perennials within the garden
- A new water-efficient irrigation system for all new planting
- New garden lighting
- Restoration of all exterior lawn areas
- Installation of service stairs, walls and curbs, exterior pathways
- Installation of rear drive accessible entry and retaining wall
- Planting trees, shrubs and groundcover between perimeter iron fence and exterior paths
- Planting buffering trees along rear drive, including a row of Liberty American elms
- Water-efficient irrigation for all new plantings
- Restoration of the Meudon Monument and terrace
- New and accessible pathways, integrating the garden, exterior landscape and improving connection to Parkway sidewalks
- Selective pruning of existing canopy trees
- Selective planting of new canopy trees
- Parkway enhancements, including improved drainage between 21st and 22nd Streets
- New benches and receptacles along Parkway sidewalk at front entry
- Planting of flowering shrubs and groundcover at front entry
- Replacement of declining trees along Parkway between 21st and 22nd Streets and at front entry
