January 15, 2025
Provided Image/Calder Gardens
Calder Gardens, a new art museum on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, is set to open in September featuring the sculptures of Alexander 'Sandy' Calder in indoor and outdoor galleries.
Calder Gardens, the new museum under construction on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway with indoor and outdoor galleries displaying the art of sculptor Alexander "Sandy" Calder, will open in September, officials said Wednesday.
The $58 million project – a metal-clad gallery building set amid a meadow – was announced in February 2020 and work at the site started in 2022. The museum will cover about two acres between 21st and 22nd streets, joining Philadelphia's district of cultural institutions that includes the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rodin Museum and Barnes Foundation.
Calder Gardens will be an independent museum, but it will get administrative, operational and educational programming support from the Barnes Foundation.
Calder, who spent parts of his life in Philadelphia, is best-known for inventing the category of kinetic sculptures known as the mobile, as well as his abstract sculptures that experimented with bold colors and curves, known as stabiles. He came from a family of distinguished artists, including his grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder, who sculpted the William Penn statue atop City Hall. His father, Alexander Stirling Calder, created the Swann Memorial Fountain in Logan Square.
Calder Gardens has appointed Juana Berrio to serve as the museum's director of programs ahead of the opening in September. Berrio currently is the curatorial and sustainability advisor at the Whitney Museum of American Art, a modern art exhibition in New York City's Meatpacking District. She described Calder Gardens as a melding of art, architecture and nature that will offer visitors a sanctuary for self-reflection.
"Calder's own passion for interdisciplinary collaborations and experimentation at large provides a perfect context for Calder Gardens to become one of the most innovative and forward-thinking spaces for art and culture today," Berrio said in a press release.
Calder's grandson, Alexander S. C. Rower, said the museum aims to immerse visitors in the flux of Calder's sculptures.
"For viewers who open themselves up to the possibilities of his mobiles and stabiles, the unexpected takes root," Rower said. "His objects continuously unfold in real time."
The museum's construction was set back by delays, including plans to develop more flood protection measures that will protect the exhibits. In addition to rotating displays of Calder's major sculptures, the museum will feature some of the artist's notable paintings from the Calder Foundation in New York City.
The indoor gallery at Calder Gardens is shown in the rendering above.
Herzog & de Meuron, the architectural firm that designed London's Tate Modern galleries, created the plan for the 18,000-square-foot structure that will house Calder's sculptures on the parkway. Large windows will provide natural light for viewing Calder's work, and the outdoor spaces will be planted with native seasonal flowers chosen by Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf.
The opening of Calder Gardens later this year comes as the city contemplates plans to reimagine the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to make it more inviting, pedestrian-friendly and accessible for events. Last week, elected officials announced the city had a received a $23.3 million federal grant to transform Eakins Oval and make improvements to traffic patterns, bike baths and pedestrian areas along the Ben Franklin Parkway.
