The Wende Museum rear garden is getting closer to completion. The garden will include an event area, pieces from the museum's collection, fire pit, and water feature. Specimen trees have been delivered, and board-formed concrete seat walls and elements have been poured.
Wende Museum
"Beyond the Wall" at The Wende Museum
Segal Shuart was honored to be involved in The Wende Museum's "Beyond the Wall" fundraising gala last Saturday night. The planning and visioning really paid off and we enjoyed walking the red carpet, sipping on signature drinks and hearing from the many dignitaries in attendance. The palms that we planted only two weeks prior created a dramatically different, exciting new look for the former National Guard Armory building that's been abandoned for some time now.
A sampling of Cold War art and artifacts were on display as were renderings of the future space. We picked up a copy of the massive new Taschen book, four years in the making, which was completed just in time for the gala and for the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall (11/9). It was fun to see Benedikt Taschen and Justin Jampol, Executive Director of The Wende Museum, unveil the book by driving it into the event space in an authentic East German Trabant.
Josh Segal and Julia Shuart arrive at the event... and the paparazzi swarm.
Now that the gala has come and gone, we are very much looking forward to continuing our design work and to seeing the final product come to fruition. With so much happening in Culver City right now, this new space is gearing up for many years of success. To learn more about the event and about the museum, check out this article.
Digging in for Wende Museum's gala
As landscape architects we don't usually think of manual labor as part of the job description. We draw, collect imagery, research plants, draft plans and details, visit project sites and have client meetings. But yesterday was not your average work day for Segal Shuart. As we help our Wende Museum client prepare for a big gala on Saturday night, overseeing plant and boulder delivery turned into digging holes (in heavily compacted DG and aggregate) and unloading boxed trees.
Most of what was installed yesterday is temporary since the overall design will be finalized and implemented after this weekend's event, but with the amount of physical labor involved it sure felt permanent. Last week's palm planting in front, however, is in fact fixed and we are very excited about the gorgeous Phoenix canariensis, Washingtonia robusta and Phoenix dactylifera that now bring a new look to this minimalist, recently sandblasted, midcentury building.
Stay tuned for more news on the Wende Museum project as they prepare to move into their new home at the former Armory Building in Culver City. The first phase is the museum's street frontage and the second phase is a great rear space which will include sculpture garden(s), seating areas and more.