Melding Architectural and Natural Beauty

Great story and slide show on the Fast Company Design Website about a $400 million, 18-year (so far) initiative to commission young (mostly) Norwegian architects to create extraordinary structures in some of Norway's most spectacular and wild natural settings - fjords, rivers, forests. These structures are not huge - They are modest (in scale, not design) walkways, observation platforms, rest houses. These are beautiful examples of how human intervention and structures can meld brilliantly with the landscape, and also how design and architecture can become a driver of tourism, and in ways that don't have to involve constructing enormous "architectural destination" buildings. So while it may seem like a lot of money, it has funded 120 sites and they are only halfway through the program. You can check out the slide show here, but I've included an image to provide a flavor of the program (the image is actually not from the slide show at Fast Company but from the Norwegian tourism website). This sure makes me way want to visit these places in Norway!

I can imagine something like this even in an urban setting like the Wissahickon area of Fairmount Park, along the Delaware or Schuykill, or some of the wilder areas of the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Jody Pinto's Fingerspan in the Wissahickon (commissioned by the Fairmount Park Art Association) and the Morris Arboretum's new "Out on a Limb" Canopy Walk come closest to this in Philadelphia. Here is a picture of the Canopy Walk, which was designed by Metcalfe Architecture & Design, and recently won a 2010 Architectural Excellence Award from AIA Philadelphia :

Comments

The Greatest Sacrifice Arts Workers Make for the Arts

With all the financial challenges arts workers are facing these days - struggling to balance the budgets of their organizations, or dealing with salary and benefit cuts on compensation that was modest to begin with - it is easy to view the sacrifices people make to work in this field as being entirely financial. Not to minimize the financial sacrifices - they ARE significant - but I would argue they are probably no more significant than a wide array of professions where people choose to devote themselves to the pursuit of "making the world a better place". This includes early childhood workers, teachers, social workers, the whole world of NGOs working in challenged communities, both domestically and abroad. And the sacrifices all these workers make are also not just financial. We all work long hours, and often under trying and unglamorous circumstances (though to outsiders arts work can seem glamorous). No, I think the more significant - and unique - sacrifice arts worke

A Decade of Transformation - Reflections on my 10-year anniversary at Bonfils-Stanton Foundation

This reflection was created as part of my report to the Board of Directors at our recent quarterly board meeting. It seemed to me that it might be worth sharing more widely. So much has happened at the Foundation over the past ten years, it was a helpful exercise to try and capture those changes. I am sure I missed some! October 1, 2023, officially marked my ten-year anniversary at the Foundation. Inevitably with these milestones it is helpful to reflect on what has been accomplished, what has changed, and what remains to be done. Because this is an important and extensive story to tell, I hope you will indulge me as I share how the Foundation has transformed over these past ten years. Board/Governance I have worked with three (soon to be four) chairs in this time, starting, of course, with Lanny Martin, who led the search process that brought me to the Foundation. When I began it was a small board of five with no term limits and a Board that had not had a trustee of color in it

UPDATED: A Guide to Arts and Culture Gift Shops in Philadelphia (Museum Shops and Beyond!)

Note: This was originally posted about six months ago, and with the holiday season upon us, I figured it was time to update and repost! The tourism web site UWISHUNU (from the Greater Philadelpia Tourism Marketing Corporation) has also recently published its guide to Philadelphia Museum gift shops, which is available here . Happy shopping! I have been a huge fan of museum and other arts organization gift shops for years. My work has given me the opportunity to explore lots of organizations, in NY, Philadelphia, and to some extent all across the country. Some are well known - others are hidden gems. The best ones have excellent buyers that find products relevant to the exhibitions, collections or presentations of the institution, but also stock unique artisinal creations by artists, craftspeople and designers that have a sense of place or direct connection to the organization's artistic focus. I am not talking about t-shirts and other logo-emblazoned merchandise, or touristy &quo

Mile-High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy

Search This Blog