Land+Living: The Kraus Campo

Art, Landscape — April 1, 2005 Posted by James

Garden-as-a-sculpture and sculpture-as-a-garden

My smart cousin who is a student at Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburg tipped me off to this new campus garden designed in collaboration by artist Mel Bochner and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh.

The garden is a physical manifestation of Carnegie Mellon's multidisciplinary philosophy, a communal crossroads of the arts, business, science and humanities. The garden is an intimate gathering space and a foil to the large formal lawns, quads and early 20th-century Beaux Arts architecture that dominate the campus.

The University has a wonderful website that provides extensive information about the design, the players and the plantings, as well as information about how to visit.

Link: Kraus Campo
Artist: Mel Bochner
Firm: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

For those in the Pittsburg area, Carnegie Mellon's College of Fine Arts is also holding a symposium on artists and gardens entitled No Stone Unturned on April 11, 2005, which will include presentations and dialogue exploring how artists create, transform or integrate natural and built environments.

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2 comments

Comments (2)

joseph — June 23, 2005
french curve?

i'm just wonderin', why the french curve? can't think of any other shape or probably in a hurry?

James — June 23, 2005
Artists Statement

Check out the "Kraus Campo" link above for a lot in good information about the design. Why the French curve? There is more info in the link, but the artist explains it this way: "In order to give the garden the feeling of being a world, it needed a central generating form. From the beginning I was certain that it had to be an organic form. How better to generate a set of curves than from the French curve? And what a happy coincidence that it resembled another historical signifier-- the artist’s palette. That engineers and artists no longer use these tools does not alter their ability to symbolize two entire cultures at a glance."