Exhibitions

 

Continuity and Change:
The American Academy Experience as a Progenitor of a
Nature-Culture Stewardship Ethic

This exhibition, conceived by TCLF's founder and president, Charles Birnbaum, advanced the research proposals outlined in the Samuel Kress Foundation planning grant funded in 2004.

The exhibition will showcase the documentation plans, planting plans, regional surveys, illustrative landscape "restoration," and "reconstruction" plans, prepared by early American Academy in Rome's Fellows in Landscape Architecture (between 1914 and the onset of World War II.)  These richly rendered drawings,  the cornerstone in a forthcoming exhibition, recorded the palimpsest of preservation and design decisions made at iconic Italian villas and gardens. To date, research has shown  that these invaluable archival records reveal solutions and approaches that are relevant today, and beg to be explained and explored in an exhibition and related publication. The work of these landscape architects will be displayed, celebrated, and considered in the context of present-day stewardship models.

In 2005, research was advanced in both America and Italy including a review of collections at Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, the New York offices of the American Academy in Rome and Harvard’s Frances Loeb Library. In addition, the curator returned to Italy for two weeks in September to undertake final research and exhibition planning. Proposals to fund the exhibition were also produced and advanced this past year.