On the way back to MA from the APLD conference in Philadelphia last month, I simply had to stop once again at this remarkable garden not too far off the main route. It is, of course, the Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens at Pepsico Headquarters in Purchase, NY. These 168 acres are home to 45 major artworks by illustrious artists -- Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miro, George Segal, Barbara Hepworth, David Wynne, and more. According to Pepsico, Mr. Kendall wanted a corporate atmosphere that would foster creativity, experimentation, and stability. He hired architect Edward Durrell Stone to design the buildings and began collecting sculptures in 1965. The landscape surrounding the buildings was laid out by the architect's son, E.D. Stone, Jr, but in 1980, British landscape designer Russell Page was brought in to extend the gardens, firmly ground the sculptures to the landscape and add special gardens to the special plant collections that already existed. Calder's "Hats Off" (above), is beautifully positioned in front of tall evergreens, making it a great showpiece all year round.
This is the lead-off sculpture on Page's "Golden Path" that winds through a picnic grove, around a pond, through woods and his famed lily ponds, an iris garden, a birch grove, and more.
(click on image for larger view)
The path, of course, provides visitors with carefully selected and continuous views of the sculptures from many different sites and angles. The color of Louise Nevelson's "Celebration II" is repeated in the clipped red beech hedge behind it. This scupture is nestled in the intersection of two routes of the golden path , one of which runs behind the hedge, hiding the artwork until you round the corner.
The lily ponds, beautiful at any time of year, are particularly magnific
ent in high summer, surrounded by perennial beds overflowing with lavender, thousands of colorful daylilies, and
heavy with the the sweet scent of flowering buddleias. In spring, this garden comes alive with the row of flowering crabapples to the left.
Since 1985, Belgian landscape architect Francois Goffinet has been in charge of the garden's development, who has limbed up some of the trees as they've reached maturity, added a stream garden and an azalea garden.
The gardens are open dawn to dusk 365 days a year and there are picnic tables throughout. Pepsico is located at 700 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10577.
(click on images for larger view)
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