Calder Gardens

A very unusual space in which to display Calder's wonderful art. I thought there would more art outdoors but the art is mainly displayed in subterranean space. The outdoors is devoted to a public, native plant garden with benches. The plants were getting crispy on my visit but I imagine will be spectacular in the spring. The indoor space had mobiles, paintings and "outdoor" sculptures. I was disappointed that the mobiles were barely moving. In some cases I felt the sculptures were squashed and better suited to being outdoors. There is no information about the art - the idea being that you just contemplate it. I wish there was a site where I could look it up later. While the intent of the design is to provide a meditative space, it felt too small and crowded for that. I was done in under an hour. It is worth seeing and I enjoyed it.

Super small exhibit which was a little disappointing for the processing. And to call the place Calder Gardens but then really lack proper outdoor space is a bit of a misnomer. Yes, there’s beautiful, well-thought-out, landscape architecture, of probably mostly native plants, that will look amazing. Come spring when they have filled out and are in bloom, but there’s essentially a sidewalk going from the front of the building to the north side, and nothing else garden wise to explore. Glad I saw it, the art itself was beautiful, I just wish there was more of it and it cost half the ticket amount.

The gardens and museum were stunning. Brilliantly designed to accentuate the art. We especially enjoyed the rooms that revealed themselves like little treasures when you turned a corner. It took our breath away even on a busy Saturday!

Absolutely loved it - so stunning. The installations of Calder's work is phenomenal and the building is absolutely exquisite. The outdoors "garden" area is not ready yet. Things have been planted but will not be ready for prime time until next year.

Fantastic space. This is a reflective, contemplative space. If you think of it as a museum, you’re completely missing the point. I enjoyed sitting for 15 or 20 minutes observing just one mobile and letting my mind wander. Objects in the building will be rotated. The building design is fantastic. The outdoor gardens as they grow are going to be impressive. And if art speaks to the future, which it does, just observe his rendition of the Philly Phanatic.

Everything looks perfect. A little bit smaller than expected, so it would be greater if it's more spacious with the collections. But it's not complaining. Collections, display, interior, architects, and landscape with the right plants, all of things are well planned so that everthing looks so natural and makes me feel traveling somewhere else nicely. Happy to be a Philadelphian.

impressive atmosphere! came here to check out the art and work on some illustrations. love love love calder and they did a great job showcasing his work in fun and interesting ways. my only critique is that i wish they had a cafe! the fact that its supposed to be a “place for contemplation” rather than a museum, with nothing to fuel up on didn’t make sense to me.

Only walked around the outside garden areas and enjoyed the few flowers that were still blooming in early October. The ground is quite dry with the lack of rain recently, so many of the shrubs and plants are in need of care. Always nice to find surprises while exploring any city, especially Philadelphia.

We loved visiting Calder Gardens. The sculptures and mobiles are beautifully presented and lighted. We especially enjoyed one mobile piece, displayed in its own special alcove. I found sitting there with it induced a great sense of calm. The building itself is a work of art: full of sunlight and twisty, turny places that have you turning a corner to discover yet another suprising piece of Alexander Calder's art. And from the second floor, you get an overview of several of his works. The folks at the front desk are friendly and helpful, adding to the good feelings we had being in this space. The gift shop is lovely.

After reading about Philadelphia's newest art museum - and being a fan of Calder's work - I was so excited to visit Calder Gardens a week or so ago. So what is Calder Gardens? It's a new art institution dedicated to the artist Alexander Calder, who was born in Philadelphia and became a highly influential artist of the 20th century. According to its website, Calder Gardens was "conceived as a place where an evolving interplay between art, architecture, nature, and programming encourages contemplation and self-discovery." I'm really bummed to be writing a three-star review for Calder Gardens, because some of what they're doing is amazing. But I just think they've missed the mark a bit, too. What's great about Calder Gardens? The architecture. The building was designed by Herzog & de Meuron, and it's stunning. I knew I was in for an architectural treat just from the exterior - a folded metal canopy roof reflecting the nature around the structure meats a warm wood-lined entry area - but it was the interior that really blew me away. The interior is filled with concrete (including really interesting use of "scratched concrete"), beautiful wood planks, windows and tons of light (except where there was hardly any light intentionally), beams, and more. There were some special spaces, too. The Apse Gallery is created from two offset curved walls, and the single piece in that gallery looks like it's floating in some unreal place. The Cuboid Stair make me feel like I was entering a 1980s Jim Henson movie set (like Dark Crystal or Labyrinth), and the piece hanging there now (a compact mobile titled "Tentacles") has a haunting quality from its placement in that strange (but strangely beautiful) stairwell covered in dark, rough, textured concrete. All of this makes for a really great site for Calder's work. It's really an exhibition space, not a museum. Calder Gardens doesn't own any of the art but exhibits Calder pieces from around the world and from different collections. That means the galleries will always be changing - some will remain for years, some for months. The piece on view display a diverse range of Calder's work: mobiles, sculptures, paintings... I saw some pieces that looked like what I think of classic Calder, and I saw some that surprised me. And the architecture's openness and light really showcases the works beautifully. It's hard to describe or explain, but Calder Gardens just feels fun. The spaces are surprising, and it feels like you're a part of the work. You can also just wander. It feels like exploring and wandering much more than it feels like a museum. Kids there when we were looked to be having a lot of fun, too. So what didn't I love about Calder Gardens? First of all, I'm not sure calling it Calder Gardens was a great idea. A lot has been made in articles I've read about the landscape design by Piet Oudolf. Because of that and because Gardens is in the name, I thought there would be a bit of a sculpture garden - a walk through the grounds and through Oudolf's design. But the only walking you do through the gardens is taking one of two paths that leads from the street to the front door. Calder Gardens sounds nicer than Calder Institute or Calder Center, but I think it implies that you will be experiencing some gardens. Since there aren't explorable gardens to speak of (there is one garden area you can visit - the Vestige Garden, which is a small garden area you can access from inside surrounded on all sides by the building itself), the space isn't large. A lot of the pieces are large, but there are currently 37 pieces on view, in total. The space is amazing and the pieces are amazing, but I can't imagine spending a great length of time here. There is a staircase area meant for spending time where you could read a book or sit and enjoy the space, as well as a few other bench areas, but I don't think the average visitor will spend more than an hour here (and many will probably spend less than that - half an hour?). In addition, Calder Gardens has no wall labels and no gallery booklets. If you want to know the name, date, and materials of any of the pieces, you can go to their website, where every piece on view is listed. I don't mind that really; I know that their goal is to have people experience the work in a different way, rather than just reading about it, but I do think that also can shorten the visit. Visiting Calder Gardens costs $18 for adults, $16 for seniors, $5 for college students, $5 for youth (13-18), and nothing for children 12 and under. You can add on admission to the Barnes for an additional cost ($38 for adults). This is a lot given the amount of time many visitors may be spending here. There are things about Calder Gardens that are amazing. I would certainly recommend it people who are very interested in architecture and Calder. But for the average visitor or casual art museum goer, I think it might not be a good fit given the price for adults and seniors.

Amazing art, poorly executed (and ultimately very small) gallery. Pennsylvania native and sculpture legend Alexander Calder is the focus of this new museum, which opened at the tail end of September earlier this year. Calder is most well known as the inventor of the hanging mobile, which was popularized in the 1930s through his sculptures and played an important role in laying the foundation of abstract and modern art. His career spanned over 50 years; his pieces are timeless and incredibly introspective, and his art lives on in famous institutions around the world, so needless to say, as a contemporary art enthusiast I was quite excited for a museum entirely dedicated to his work. Tickets are $18 per adult for non-members, easy to purchase online even day of, and is for timed entry to the museum and gardens. My friend and I went the first weekend in October on a Friday after lunch, so it wasn't super busy. Cheap street parking was easy to find in the surrounding blocks around Logan Square. The Gardens portion doesn't really require a ticket to see, as it surrounds the building. And, given that we came at the start of fall, there really wasn't much greenery or flowering to see. When we entered, they scanned our QR tickets and gave us a program that gave a brief blurb about the museum, but otherwise it was up to us to explore and discover. You start on the ground level and slowly go down a staircase and new pieces of the gallery unfold. It's certainly a cool entry, featuring both pieces that will rotate out periodically and a few permanent items. Calder's style is right up my alley and I found some of his hanging mobiles incredibly meditative and beautiful; he primarily uses blacks, whites, and primary colors and I loved how the museum played on natural and artificial lighting to really showcase each piece. Down the stairs there are about 3 rooms of art and then a small outdoor space with two pieces (one of which you couldn't even see properly as it relies on a hanging plant that hadn't produced leaves during the time of year I visited.) The whole museum takes max 30 minutes, even if you are really spending time observing the art and basking in it. There are a few pieces by Calder relatives which I thought was really interesting, but virtually no curation or guide to really help the viewer dig into the pieces they were seeing. Even the paper guide given at the start was extremely sparse on any information. We had to go back upstairs and ask the front desk to be sure we hadn't missed anything. We spent maybe 15 minutes perusing some of the interesting items in the gift shop, including an entire book dedicated to the thought process in designing the logo for the museum. It's ultimately a real dichotomy: incredibly stunning art, overly short experience, almost no thought given to patrons who want to dig into the art. It's a tough experience for fans of Calder. Ultimately I did really like the museum, mostly because I love Calder's work so much; but it's certainly not an experience where it feels like you are getting the bang for your buck.

A Gem along the Parkway and fabulous addition to the cultural avenue from the Art Museum, Rodin, Barnes Collection and Franklin Institute. The new Calder Museum emerges from the Garden to the reflective wall and expands with wood details and textured concrete. The entrance is somewhat secretive with no signage. However, once inside, the Calder experience expands. The sculptures and mobiles are on display with room to explore. Shadows created from the natural light as well as fixtures give harmony and flow of movement. The architectural details and expansive spaces compliment the art. While traffic whizzes by outside along I-676, the Calder museum is a bubble of quiet creative atmosphere. Splendid indeed.

$18 is RIDICULOUS, and I really like Calder. calling it "gardens" is also ridiculous. Once inside the museum There are two sculptures outside that you can walk around Outside; and a third is outside but you can only see it through a window. Then there is one room inside that has about six or seven sculptures/mobile, and one painting. That's it. There's nothing else. In the spring and summer, the Garden part might be nicer - but that is the free part that is outside in front of the museum. Once you're inside the museum, there are no "gardens", just one concrete space outside. We were done in about 15 minutes. Calder's work is cool, but there's nothing really to stare at and examine closely. None of the mobiles are moving either. There is nothing to Phil more time - no film that you can watch to learn about the Calder family, or the art, etc.. Calders have a rich history in Phila., but you would not learn that there. Save your money and go to the Philadelphia art museum, where you could literally be there from open to close and still not see everything -for $24.

Newest art museum in Philadelphia. I saw them working on it for awhile now. It's a very pretty/well designed building. The outside features a nice garden. The Calder family's work is featured here (a multi generation family of artists). The mobiles made of metal seemed to be enhanced with the architecture. My only disappointment is the price. 18 bucks for a few art pieces seems like a rip off. Also, I do wish they labeled the art pieces. I am not sure if they have names but I was seriously guessing what the art pieces represented.

Visit to the museum in the afternoon. I really enjoyed the space they built for the exhibit. Really transforms the pieces. I wasn't a huge fan of the artwork displayed. The entire space is also really small, could easily finish within 20mins. Overall can't really recommend especially charging $18.

Tried to buy ticket at the Museum, and was told by the ticket agent that I had to provide an email and phone number to complete the purchase. When I asked why, the agent officiously replied "you don't have to attend the Museum". So our party of 3 was essentially denied entry for not wanting to disclose our private data. (And the same thing happened with the couple in front of us.) I understand that arts organizations want to collect data, and I often give that data voluntarily. But it is not customer-friendly to *demand* that data as a condition of entry.

Started to wait in line and then found tried to buy tickets online - could not get to the website page to purchase tickets (tried for 30 mins). Once we got in and paid by credit card, they asked for email and phone number. I asked if they needed phone number and was told it was for the receipt - which I highly doubt so not a fan of giving my number out since they had an email. The museum is underwhelming and overpriced $18 - especially in comparison to Philly's art museum - $24. Maybe during the spring and summer the outdoor space will be nice. Not sure I'd recommend.