Articles by
Robin Karson
RIGHT HERE IN BROOKLYN
The unveiling of the new Native Flora Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden last June was exhilarating. Tiny ferns, grasses, wildflowers, shrubs, trees, and several judiciously strewn lichen-covered logs brought to mind a walk on the plain, enlivened with rhythms that recalled the curves and loops of Abstract Expressionism. Arshile Gorky done up in Little […]
NAUMKEAG RECONSTRUCTED
The Trustees did what seemed impossible two months ago. They put Naumkeag back together again. And it really sparkles. Like a newly cleaned Rembrandt, the garden’s details shine forth as never before, perhaps not even in Mabel Choate’s own lifetime. Lost for decades, many were uncovered in recently discovered photos and, in some cases, literal […]
NAUMKEAG DECONSTRUCTED
It is unnerving to see any garden taken apart, especially one that you have thought, written, and dreamt about as a culmination of history and time–as inevitable, both in the history you have constructed to explain it and in the timeless concept of it you have fashioned in your own imagination. Watching Naumkeag being created […]
DESIGN BY THE COMMUNITY
The Mission is drier and warmer (and flatter) than anywhere else in San Francisco, which makes getting around fun, but something more compelling is in the air in this distinctive place. Walking down 24th Street last week, I wondered what Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. or John Nolen would make of this neighborhood—deemed the most vibrant […]
REFLECTIONS ON OUR 20TH
The morning after celebrating LALH’s twentieth anniversary at the Boston Athenaeum, we found ourselves standing in the Dell of Mount Auburn Cemetery, under a soft, dark October sky. At that moment, at least to me, it felt that the very roots of LALH could be traced back to this silent and moving place. Mount Auburn, […]