Calder Gardens, a $70 million space dedicated to Alexander Calder, will open on September 21 in Philadelphia, the artist's hometown. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the complex features subterranean galleries and open-air pavilions surrounded by gardens, with no wall labels and rotating works from the Calder Foundation, MoMA, and the Whitney Museum. The project, led by Calder's grandson Alexander S. C. Rower and philanthropist Joseph Neubauer, revives a plan that stalled in the mid-2000s.
This matters because Calder Gardens offers a new model for experiencing art, prioritizing direct, mindful engagement over traditional museum didactics. It completes Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway as an axis of works by three generations of Calders, and its unique operating model—administered by the Barnes Foundation with public and private support—could inspire cost-efficient approaches for non-profit art spaces.