Nestled inside a thicket of highways in central Philadelphia, thousands of young plants are just beginning to show the golds and reds of fall. Butterflies linger in large swaths of purple salvia amid a matrix of swaying grasses, as asters buzz with bumblebees. Surrounded by the asphalt and noise of I-676 and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, this new public landscape designed by Piet Oudolf is an unlikely urban amenity: a prairie in a city center.
In the center of the garden, an oculus in the ground opens up to a vast below-grade gallery. Vines are slowly creeping over the walls of the cylindrical opening. Inside is a sculpture by the midcentury modern artist Alexander Calder, its red and white limbs tracing spirals in the breeze. The steel sculpture is solidly rooted while impossibly light, in conversation with the landscape rather than looming over it. Nearby, a shimmering stainless steel wall, the long and low facade of a new 18,000-square-foot building designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog and de Meuron, reflects the colors of a garden just entering autumn.
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