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Facts and Figures
Project Description
The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art occupies approximately 5 acres
in City Park adjacent to the Museum. Atypical of most sculpture gardens, this Garden is located within a mature
existing landscape of pines, magnolias and live oaks. The garden design creates outdoor viewing spaces within this
picturesque landscape. A reconfigured lagoon bisects the site and creates two distinct halves: a mature pine and
magnolia grove adjacent to the Museum, and a more open area of 200-year-old, Spanish moss-laden live oaks across
the lagoon near the New Orleans Botanical Gardens. The Sculpture Garden has grown from its inception in 2003 to
include 57 sculptures, most of them donated to the New Orleans Museum of Art by the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation.
The Sculpture Collection
The Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden is home to 57 sculptures by artists from around the world. Forty-four
of the 57 sculptures have been donated to the New Orleans Museum of Art by the Besthoff Foundation. The other 13 are
Museum purchases or gifts from other donors. The collection includes work by some of the great master sculptors of
the 20th century (Antoine Bourdelle, Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz, Louise Bourgeois), as well as younger,
contemporary sculptors (Kenneth Snelson, Allison Saar, Joel Shapiro, Jean-Michel Othoniel). Nine of the 57
sculptures pre-date 1960, while 29 of the 57 artists represented are living.
Groundbreaking
June 29, 2001
Opened
November 2003
Location
1 Dueling Oaks Drive,
City Park,
New Orleans, Louisiana
Site
4.76 acres
Architect
Lee Ledbetter Architects, New Orleans
Landscape Architect
Sawyer/Berson Architecture and Landscape Architecture, LLP, New York
Building Size
Two Pavilions, 900 square feet total
Design Features
A pair of cast stone and bronze pavilions with clerestory windows marks the main entry to the Sydney and Walda Besthoff
Sculpture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The pavilions, which face a large meadow adjacent to the Museum's entry
drive, flank a large plaza containing Henry Moore's Reclining Mother and Child. The pavilions and entry plaza also establish
a centerline through the depth of the Garden that becomes an organizing element of the design.
The garden is bisected by a lagoon which has been reshaped into two basins on either side of the central pedestrian bridge.
These lagoon basins each contain a sculpture, Kenneth Snelson's Virlane Tower and Arman's Pablo Casal's Obelisk. The location
of these vertical sculptures in the water make their reflections part of the composition.
Three pedestrian bridges cross the lagoon and connect the two sides of the Garden. The entries to the bridges are marked by
simple, cast-stone pylons that support bronze lanterns. Side rails constructed of bronze and stainless steel mesh reflect
the light an allow views through the bridges. This combination of cast-stone lantern pylons and bronze with stainless steel
mesh is repeated in the form of monumental gates at the main entry and two secondary entries.
A picturesque composition of curvilinear paths complements the mature trees while creating smaller viewing areas, or
galleries, within the Garden. These paths also connect a series of garden features including the Overlook Terrace,
the Exedra at the end of one of the pedestrian bridges, the monumental Water Steps at one of the secondary entrances,
the elliptical Sculpture Theater containing smaller pieces of sculpture and the Cascade Garden Pool containing Robert
Graham's Source Figure. The pathways also frame the elliptical Pine Grove immediately off the main entry plaza and the
large Oak Grove Lawn at the opposite end of the Garden. With the exception of the lagoon, the Oak Grove Lawn is the
most open space in the Garden and contains some of the larger sculptures including works by Louise Bourgeois, Deborah
Butterfield, Elizabeth Frink and Joel Shapiro.
Building Materials
- Limestone-finish architectural pre-cast concrete cladding at buildings and site features
- Statuary-finish bronze doors, entry gates, bridge handrails and light fixtures
- Brushed stainless-steel frame and mesh panels on entry gates and bridge handrails
- Sandblasted glass on Pavilion clerestories and light fixtures
- Tudor-finish, limestone-gray unit pavers on Garden pathways and plazas
Building Facilities
Docent Services including an Information Window, Staff Lounge, Staff Restroom, Security Office and Public Restrooms
4.76 acres, including 127,000 square feet of planted area, 50,000 square feet of sod area, and 23,230 square feet of paved areas
Garden Features
- 57 sculptures
- 3,236 linear feet of pathways
- Three pedestrian bridges crossing City Park Lagoon
- 687 square-foot Cascade Garden Pool
- Seating areas and terraces with views across the lagoon and through the Garden
- Site lighting, including specialty lighting for sculptures
- Existing mature trees, including 27 live oaks, one water oak, 11 Southern magnolias, 19 slash pines, two bald cypress
and one sweet gum that required special arboricultural treatment to the root zones and canopy
- New trees, including 9 live oaks, 15 slash pines, 23 bald cypress, 67 little gem magnolias and 28 Dr. Merrill magnolias
- New shrubs and plant material, including 63 camellias in four varieties; 344 azaleas in three varieties; 1,181 pittosporums
in three varieties; 244 Japanese ligustrums in both tree and shrub form; 56 cleyera; 15 Japanese yews; 42 wax myrtles;
20 elaegnus; 14 sago palms; five windmill palms; and 86 Louisiana sabal palmettos
- Ornamental plantings include white and purple blooming lily of the Nile and two varieties of ginger and crinum
- Holy fern and Asian jasmine ground cover
- Palmetto St. Augustine sod for all lawn areas
- A variety of vines at the perimeter fence including evergreen wisteria, yellow jasmine evergreen clematis,
star jasmine and rose of Montana
- A variety of aquatic plantings at the lagoon edge primarily consisting of purple and yellow blooming
varieties of Louisiana iris, yellow flag iris, spider lily, butterfly iris and horsetails
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