Atlanta Botanical Garden
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| Atlanta Botanical Garden | |
|---|---|
| Type | Non-profit organization |
| Founded | 1976 |
| Headquarters | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Key people | Mary Pat Matheson, CEO Ben Bradley, COO Diana Champ Davis, CFO Fontaine Huey, Director of Institutional Advancement Mildred Pinnell Fockele, Director of Horticulture Sabina Carr, Director of Marketing Ronald Determann, Director of Conservatories and Conservation |
| Employees | 70+- |
| Website | www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org |
The Atlanta Botanical Garden is a 30 acre (12 hectare) botanical garden located adjacent to Piedmont Park in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
The mission of Atlanta Botanical Garden is to develop and maintain plant collections for display, education, research, conservation and enjoyment.
The Garden contains several different landscapes to display a variety of plants. Near the entrance are formal gardens, such as the Japanese garden and the rose garden. Two woodland areas, the 5 acre Upper Woodland and the 10 acre Storza Woods feature large trees and shade-loving flowers and undergrowth. The Children's Garden features whimsical sculptures, fountains, and interpretive exhibits on botany, ecology, and nutrition.
The 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m²) Dorothy Chapman Fuqua Conservatory contains indoor exhibits of plants from tropical rainforests and deserts. The rain forest room of the Fuqua Conservatory is also populated by tropical birds, turtles, and several exhibits of poison dart frogs. The collaborative amphibian conservation efforts between the Atlanta Botanical Garden and Zoo Atlanta can be seen at:(www.saveafrog.org). Adjoining this building, the Fuqua Orchid Center contains separate rooms simulating the tropics and high elevations in order to house rare orchids from around the world.
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[edit] History
Atlanta Botanical Garden was incorporated in 1976 as a private, 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. In 1985, the Atlanta Botanical Garden built its first permanent structure, the Gardenhouse. The Children's Garden was built in 1999. The Fuqua Conservatory opened in 1989 and the Fuqua Orchid Center was added in 2002.
Blockbuster summertime exhibitions began in 2003 with TREEmendous TREEhouses. Chihuly in the Garden opened in 2004, while in 2005 Locomotion in the Garden featured G-scale model trains. On April 29, 2006, an exhibition of the sculpture of Niki de Saint Phalle opened to the public. These huge mosaic sculptures came to the Garden from France, Germany, and California. In 2007 the exhibition was David Rogers' Big Bugs and Killer Plants. The mission of Atlanta Botanical Garden is to develop and maintain plant collections for display, education, research, conservation and enjoyment.
[edit] Chihuly in the Garden
In 2004, the Atlanta Botanical Garden hosted an extremely successful exhibition of glass art by Dale Chihuly titled "Chihuly in the Garden". The exhibit ran through the end of October and was extended until December 31, 2004. During the eight-month run, an estimated 425,000 attendees visited the exhibit. The peak per-day rates of 7500 were double the previous single-day attendance record at the Garden.
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[edit] Expansion plan and controversy
In 2007, the Atlanta Botanical Garden broke ground on its Expansion Plan, which includes a Visitor Center with green roof, a soaring Canopy Walk to take pedestrians up into the tree canopy 40 feet (12 m) above the forest floor, a 95,000 US gallon cistern to harvest storm water for later use as irrigation water, a new pedestrian path, and a fee-based parking garage. The new parking facility, new Visitor Center, Canopy Walk and Southern Seasons Garden will open in spring 2009.
The Expansion Plan encountered opposition from the beginning. In May, 2004, when the Atlanta Botanical Garden unveiled a proposal with the Piedmont Park Conservancy to build a parking garage in the interior of Piedmont Park as part of the Plan, opponents, led by Friends of Piedmont Park, a public interest group, contended that the decision-making process was not comprehensive or fair and that alternatives to the parking garage had not been considered. In November 2005, the parking garage was approved by the Atlanta City Council and signed by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. In January 2007, Friends of Piedmont Park and several citizens filed a suit in Fulton County Superior Court, Georgia regarding various aspects of the parking garage. During 2007, Judge Jackson Bedford decided that the Piedmont Park Conservancy was subject to Georgia's open records laws, but dismissed the plaintiffs' other claims, including that the Atlanta Botanical Garden was subject to Georgia's Open Records Act since it was building a parking garage in a public park. In December 2007, the Atlanta Botanical Garden filed a SLAPP motion seeking $273,000 in legal fees against Friends of Piedmont Park, its President, and their attorneys claiming the lawsuit was frivolous. Friends of Piedmont Park opposed the motion saying its actions were proper and lawful and were an exercise of the right to petition the government under the First Amendment.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Atlanta Botanical Garden is at coordinates Coordinates:
