Artwork Details
- Title
- Pavilion in the Trees
- Artist
- Martin Puryear (b. 1941)
- Year
- 1993
- Location
- Lansdowne Glen, Horticulture Center grounds, off North Horticultural Drive, West Fairmount Park
- Medium
- Debarked western red cedar (posts and framing); clear, heart white oak (decking, handrails, and benches); clear, heart redwood (canopy); stainless steel mesh
- Dimensions
- Walkway: width 5′, length 60′, Deck: height 13 1/2″; width 13 1/2″; 24′ above ground Latticed canopy: height 11′; width 16′; depth 16′ Overall height approximately 35′
Artwork Description
PLEASE NOTE: Due to structural safety issues, Pavilion in the Trees is closed to the public until further notice. The Association for Public Art, along with an engineering firm and the Conservation Team at Fairmount Park Conservancy, are working to assess what needs to be done in order to stabilize the structure and reopen it to the public. You can still enter the forested area and observe the artwork–you just can’t go on it or under it. Stay tuned for more information.
Martin Puryear’s Pavilion in the Trees is an amenity located near the Horticulture Center in West Fairmount Park. Conceived in 1981, the public artwork was developed as part of Association for Public Art’s (then known as the Fairmount Park Art Association) Form and Function program. The original model included a steep set of stairs, but the artist decided to substitute a sloping ramp for aesthetic and safety reasons.
Puryear – whose retrospective exhibition was shown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1992 – worked with architect Samuel Harris, at the time with the firm Kieran Timberlake and Harris, to realize the project, which was supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Inspired by the universal childhood longing for a tree house, Pavilion consists of an open structure supported by a series of posts.
All of the materials – western red cedar, heart white oak, heart redwood – were selected for their natural durability. A sixty-foot walkway leads across a natural basin to an observation platform – a square deck covered by a latticed canopy – that rises twenty-four feet above the ground. Situated high among the treetops, the work has become a much-favored place to relax and contemplate nature from a bird’s-eye view.
Artwork Credits
Commissioned by Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association)
Owned by the City of Philadelphia
Artwork Media
Museum Without Walls
Voices:
MARTIN PURYEAR, the artist who created Pavilion in the Trees, was inspired by his childhood longing for a tree house. He is heard on archival tape courtesy Art 21, Inc.
BOB TAYLOR, a woodworker who specializes in custom millwork, built the canopy for Pavilion in the Trees at Martin Puryear’s direction.
MICHAEL AUPING is the former Chief Curator of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. He contributed to the volume Martin Puryear, published on the occasion of the artist’s exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Producer: Lu Olkowski