Saturday, October 5, 2013

lost in the woods...



the waterlily pond stasis of a clogged giverny
with artful conventions in a wet coastal setting,


and hidden within this pedicured city garden
lurks the overgrown portal to an interior forest...


the tree trunks reconfigured and reassembled
to hold up the rainproof canopy and glass curtains -

all trying to keep the forest sliver within safe 
from being quite lost to the deep dark woods...




The Forest Education Centre in the VanDusen Botanical Garden was built in 1976 by Vancouver architect Paul Merrick.  Originally underwritten by MacMillan Bloedel and featured as "A Walk in the Forest", it was donated to the Park Board in 1986, which continued to offer educational programs until 2011.
This relatively unknown diminutive glassed "babylon" of westcoast modernism is now considered for demolition, or repurposed into a glorified outhouse!

For more information... awalkintheforest2013.blogspot.ca