Queens Botanical Garden has announced the arrival of its new $22 million Visitor and Adminstration Center in a big way across the city, as the subject of a Time Out New York cover and article.
The mission of their new space is to 'create sustainable systems that promote human and ecological health'. The project is laid out in detail on their website. They are set to become a resource for NYers, drawing in many of us that want to know how to live more sustainably, and showing us the role that plants (and people) can play in this process.
The TONY article mentions the fact that the new Center recycles gray water, uses a geothermal system for heating/cooling, collects rainwater for the plants, and that you can walk onto the Center's roof garden which slopes up from the ground level.
In addition to the LEED platinum rated building, the surrounding landscape will function both as 'botanical collections and functional parts of the Gardens water conservation and stormwater management systems. These include bioswales, a green roof, a cleansing biotope, and a constructed wetlands.' We'll be able to see and learn about the native plant habitats that once occupied New York City as well as their cultural and ecological roles.
The cover (TONY worried that the full nudity on the cover may lead to a boycott by some stores) and article photos are by Spencer Tunick, an installation artist who works with the orchestration of bodies on various sites around the world.
His installation for TONY/QBG will no doubt bring much attention and sensationalism to the new space. But the new QBG space deserves the true spotlight and will be a fascinating destination as the newer gardens fill out and they implement more of their projects.
matt at apartment therapy dot com
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
umm could you not post pictures that could get you in trouble at work or in a library or at least give a NSFW warning? not all of us wanna see nudists. thanks.
view mariegael's profile
Would you get in trouble for having that magazine on your desk at work?
view patrick (the other one)'s profile
give us a break please, you know you are not in a library. just shut up, get off the internet and go back to work, no one but you thinks that photo is NSFW.
view snot's profile
Funny - my friend tried to get me to go to the photo shoot for this. I was tempted, but I wasn't up for baring my post-pregnancy body for all to see!
view mangosteen's profile
snot--
An apt screen name, indeed.
Regarding the cover, I *am* surprised there is indeed full frontal there. But this cover is about as titillating-- or controversial-- as Manet's "The Picnic on the Grass."
view patrick (the other one)'s profile
I though it was an AT party I wasn't invited to,
view Kate (NC)'s profile
By the way P2, Manet's picnic was scandalous in its day because the woman was nude and the men clothed.
view Kate (NC)'s profile
I had wondered if the new Center would be overshadowed by the installation project :)
I imagine the intent was to celebrate or show the connection of people to nature. These people also feel like a field of wild flowers, all different in many ways. I like how the artist positions people like brushstrokes and that there is such a wide range of bodies. In other pictures of his works they people felt less human, more like objects. I like how alive these scenes look.
Growing plants is a start to having a healthier urban environment, but it is not the whole picture. I was very happy to see that one institution has this issue as a focus.
view mattplantguy's profile
KateNC--
Oh, I am sure it was (and still creepy to me today because of it).
Also why it is *not* one of my favorite pieces of fine art. ;)
But, as you can see today, the double standard about male and female figures in nudity still persist... the full frontal is female here, too, while the closest we get to male full frontal is blocked by (ironically) a well-placed basket.
Nice basket, though. :)
view patrick (the other one)'s profile
I also find it ironic all these people languishing in the sun are typically pale and pasty...
Apparently, in today's (crowded) Garden of Eden, God provided SPF30.
view patrick (the other one)'s profile
Patrick -
Check out the actual article. Plenty of male full frontal to go around.
Interestingly in this series there are also fully clothed models, which seems to be a first for Tunick. Maybe it was a nod to this double standard?
view mattplantguy's profile