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Jens Jensen The Living Green: A Documentary Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Date: 
Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Location: 
The New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx NY 10458

 

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This Earth Day, get inspired to take action with this award-winning film celebrating Danish-born Jens Jensen (1860-1951), who rose from street sweeper to "dean of landscape architects" and pioneering conservationist. When he arrived penniless in Chicago in 1885, it was a fast-growing city teeming with urban squalor. Rejecting the neo- classical vision of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, Jensen joined Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan in taking the prairie as inspiration for a new city design. In his parks, workers' children enjoyed playgrounds and grew food in community gardens, and Jensen became known as "The Vexing Thorn" for his passionate battles with Chicago's political bosses over the city's future.

As designer of landscapes for scions of industry such as Henry Ford, J.O. Armour, and Julius Rosenwald, Jensen leveraged powerful relationships to block the steel industry from developing the entire Lake Michigan shoreline; Indiana Dunes is now a National Lakeshore. His legacy also includes Chicago's Humboldt, Douglas, and Columbus Parks, and the stunning Garfield Park Conservatory. 

Half a century after his death, Jensen is now hailed as a pioneer of sustainable design, an early champion of native species, and an unsung American hero. Immediately after the screening, a panel will explore Jensen's work and its relevance to today's urban environmental issues. 

This program is presented by the NYBG Humanities Institute, LuEsther T. Mertz Library. Support for the Humanities Institute provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Cosponsor: Library of American Landscape History