|  Architectural
Details
Park and read
After nearly a year of construction and landscaping,
a new Reader’s Garden opened this June just south of Harper
Library. With curving walkways, bountiful shrubbery, and well-placed
benches, the garden provides what the campus master plan calls “a
connection between the intellectual pursuits of the University and
the physical joys of being outdoors.”
Covering four acres between Ellis Avenue and
Woodlawn Avenue, the garden was built around a 150-ton statue of
Swede Carl von Linné, better known as Linnaeus (of scientific-classification
fame). The monument was transported to campus from Lincoln Park
in 1976 and rededicated by Carl XVI Gustav, the king of Sweden.
The move was supported by Chicago’s Sweedish community to
provide a site where groups could gather for traditional celebrations.
One piece of a grand plan to invigorate the Midway
Plaisance, the Reader’s Garden will be joined by a children’s
garden and playground, an urban horticulture center with demonstration
gardens, a winter garden, and a health and healing garden.
-A.L.M.
Photo by Dan Dry |
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Linnaeus contemplates
the new Reader’s Garden on the Midway.
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