Calder Gardens on schedule for September 2025 opening on the Parkway

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A new museum of the artist Alexander Calder, now under construction on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, will be ready to open in September.

Calder Gardens, being built at 21st and the Parkway, will be administered through a partnership with the Barnes Foundation across the street. They announced the building, designed by the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron and landscape architect Piet Oudolf, is on schedule to open to the public this fall.

The partnership also announced a leader has been hired: Juana Berrío, currently the curatorial and sustainability advisor at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program, will be Calder Garden’s senior director of programs, overseeing the development of public programming. She starts next week.

“I look forward to working with the team to design rich cross-pollinations between artistic and non-artistic practices, with diverse communities, and between humans, flora, and fauna,” Berrío said in a statement. “Calder’s own passion for interdisciplinary collaborations and experimentation at large provides a perfect context for Calder Gardens to become one of the most innovative and forward-thinking spaces for art and culture today.”

Calder Garden will be a single-artist museum dedicated to the youngest of the Calder dynasty of artists. Alexander Calder’s grandfather made the statue of William Penn on top of City Hall. His father made Swann Fountain in Logan Square, and Alexander himself was famous for his sculpted aerial mobiles.

Most of the museum’s artwork will be below grade, with large-scale subterranean galleries. On the surface will be a large garden-like meadow along the Parkway.

At this stage of construction the building’s envelope is completed, with exterior walls, roofs, windows and doors in place.

It’s time to start thinking about its interior. Berrío will be planning for ways to engage audiences with Calder’s artistic vision.

“Calder Gardens is an entirely new type of cultural institution,” said Alexander S.C. Rower, Calder’s grandson and president of his foundation. “Focused on nurturing introspection and personal growth through the art and ideas of my grandfather.”