Jason Frantzen is a senior partner in the Herzog & de Meuron architecture firm who studied architecture at Cornell University and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He has been the director of his firm’s Calder Gardens project since it began five years ago. He recently talked with The Inquirer via Zoom.
Your firm’s website describes the Calder Gardens design as: “Form, color, movement are the most obvious of many outstanding aspects in Calder’s Art. We wanted to therefore avoid rather than adopt the use of those as possible design elements.” Can you talk about that approach?
A lot of people have a strong association with Calder’s work; with its form, color, movement. We thought it was important not to compete with his work, not to be somehow mimicking it, but to create a diversity of environments in which people can experience the work.
It’s remarkable that there are so many spaces in which people have experienced Calder’s work — indoors, outdoors, hanging, on the ground, on a wall, in 2D, in 3D.
We saw it as an opportunity to create a very broad diversity of backdrops for his work. The colors and forms of his work are so strong that if you had something that somehow matched that, you might lose the power of those pieces. So a central point from the beginning was to avoid the temptation to do something overly similar to or inspired by the work.
What direction did you take instead?
What we were trying to do was create that diversity of spaces to let people see his work in unexpected ways, in different light, on different backgrounds, from above, from below.
Also, it was absolutely essential to us to make a place that was a part of the site. In the same sense that you don’t want to compete with Calder’s work, we didn’t want to compete with the architecture of the other museums around the site. You have all these incredible museums that have a very strong presence in the city. We wanted to offer something different that was an extension of the Parkway.
How much time did you spend in Philadelphia?
Over the five or so years of this project I spent quite a bit of time there. Although I live in Basel, I was in Philadelphia every two months or so, visiting with the team there, visiting the construction on the site. We had a team in New York that was there two or three times a week.
We had to understand what we could do that contributed to the place. This would never be the same if you built it in Boston or San Francisco.
It belongs in this place, it belongs to the Parkway, it belongs to that collection of institutions, and it belongs to Philadelphia, because of the site and also because of the history with the Calder family.
What stands out to you as a unique quality of this site?
That it was, on the one hand, so central and prominent and historic in the city. On the other hand, so difficult and cut off.
Not many people really cross the Parkway. It’s very difficult to access. So we had to navigate where to place this building in such a way that it would draw people [from] across the Parkway.
You come off the Parkway but you have the noise of the city. That can take you out of the environment you want to experience the art.
But because of the simple gesture of the wall framing the garden, it’s quieter. That allows the garden to exist in front of it, and it doesn’t try to compete with the urban environment around it.
Was the site a factor in choosing materials?
Oh yes. That reflective facade was also to dematerialize the project, not make it a huge monument but to reflect the green, the environment around it. It should almost disappear. Then the exit opens up and reveals the one place you can go inside. It’s a moment of surprise.
Inside, the concrete responds to the fact that you’re underground. It’s not a conventional museum. It’s an individual having a very personal relationship with the work.
Did anything unexpected happen during the project?
The Vine Street Highway flooded. I think it was in 2022? We had designed this whole project to be underground. We knew what the flood lines were and we designed to that. Then the flood came and it was considerably higher. That changed the entire setting of the project. It had a profound impact. It didn’t change the concept or the aesthetic, but we had to make all sorts of adjustments.
Quite late on, the team discovered there was a very significant water main that served the whole city, that somehow wasn’t documented. So we had to react to that.
You can see it in one of the galleries that has a kink in it. That’s offset from the water main.
What did you think of the city while you were here?
I love Philadelphia.
I love food in Philadelphia, I love going for my morning runs along the Parkway. I find the neighborhoods amazing. I’m a New Yorker originally, and strangely didn’t spend much time in Philadelphia. I only went back and discovered it with this project, and I think it’s a really remarkable place.
“The Magic of Calder Gardens” is produced with support from Lisa D. Kabnick and John H. McFadden. Editorial content is created independently of the project’s donors.
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