Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens

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The Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens is a collection of 45 pieces of outdoor sculpture at the Pepsico world headquarters in Purchase, New York. The collection includes work from major modern sculptors including Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder and Alberto Giacometti.

The collection, which also features works by Henri Laurens, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Jean Dubuffet, and Claes Oldenberg, focuses on major 20th century art. The sculpture garden takes up 168 acres and includes lawns, trees, ponds, fountains, and landscaped gardens with a topiary, tended hedges, flower beds and water-lily ponds.[1]

Contents

[edit] Visitor access and nearby art

The sculpture garden is open to the public, and a visitor's booth is in operation during the spring and summer, according to the PepsiCo Web site, although a The New York Times article reported that it was open from March to November. When the center is closed, visitors may get a map of the gardens from a security guard at the headquarters entrance.[2][1] No admission is charged for entrance, and parking is free.[1] According to The New York Times, as of September 2006, the sculpture garden is open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., April to October, and from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., November to March. Visitors can Metro-North commuter train to White Plains or Rye, and then take a taxi to the headquarters. The No. 12 bus from the White Plains railroad station stops at the headquarters.[1]

"PepsiCo World Headquarters" is a seven-building complex designed by Edward Durrell Stone.[2] Across the street (Anderson Hill Road) from the headquarters, more modern art can be seen at the Neuberger Museum of Art on the campus of Purchase College of the State University of New York.[1] The PepsiCo Web site gives out very little information on the gardens on its Web site.

[edit] List of works in the sculpture garden

The sculpture garden has 45 works:

[edit] History

The sculpture garden was created at the direction of Donald M. Kendall, who was chief executive officer of PepsiCo when the company moved from Manhattan to Purchase in 1970. Kendall "sought to create an atmosphere of stability, creativity and experimentation. He envisioned as essential to that ambience a museum without walls, where works of art could be enjoyed by the employees, the community and the public," according to an article in The New York Times. Kendall himself selected the sculptures.[1]

The original landscape design was created in the late 1960s just before PepsiCo moved to the property, by E. D. Stone Jr., son of Edward Durell Stone, the arthitect of the headquarters. The younger Stone had about 6,000 trees from 38 species plus thousands of flowering bulbs planted.[4] Originally, only eight pieces of artwork were in the sculpture garden. Employees liked the idea so much that Kendall decided to enlarge the collection. As late as 1991, after Kendall had stepped down as CEO, he was still overseeing the collection.[3]

From 1981 to 1985, landscape designer Russell Page redesigned the gardens to harmonize them with the sculptures. He added intimate gardens and walks. Since 1985, a third landscape designer, Francois Goffinet, has been in charge of garden development.[4]

[edit] Maintenance

In 1991, The New York Times published a feature article on maintenance of the garden. An employee monitors the sculptures with weekly inspections, driving around in a golf cart "outfitted with brooms, brushes, a ladder, calipers, thermometers and a can of Pepsi." Nature and pollution can threaten the artwork. In the spring, birds like to nest in a work by Nevelson, chipmunks prefer the mysterious inner spaces of [[Judith Brown (sculptor)]|Judith Brown's]] "Caryatid", a welded steel sculpture made of automobile parts. At one point, carpenter bees started chewing into Robert Davidson's "Totems," a 45-foot Western red cedar sculpture. Removing bird guano is a constant task. The huge model statue of a bear was a favorite target for some.[3]

The piece "Grizzly Bear" by David Wynne faces harm even from the temperature. "When the sun hits that black rock during the day the temperature can go up to 120 degrees on the surface, and drop to 40 degrees at night," according to Douglass Kwart, a freelance objects conservator who was overseeing the conservation program at Pepsico as of 1991. "That change puts the stones through tremendous stress, because of contraction. Water is absorbed into the stone and driven out, absorbed and driven out again."[3]

As of 1991, maintenance staff at the garden wrote up a weekly report on each piece of sculpture after observing each for damage.[3]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f [1]Antman, Rachel A., "Day Trip: Modern Sculptures, Outdoors And Free", article in the "Escapes" section of The New York Times, September 29, 2006, accessed January 9, 2007
  2. ^ a b [2]Web page titled "Pepsico: Overview" at the PepsiCo Web site, accessed January 9, 2007
  3. ^ a b c d e f [3]DeChillo, Suzanne, "Battling Nature in the Sculpture Garden", article, The New York Times, February 3, 1991, accessed January 9, 2007
  4. ^ a b [4]Web page titled "February 2005 The Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens" at the Dig It! magazine Web site, accessed January 9, 2007