Month: November 2010

Fate of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory

lhb conservatory

The 79-year-old Lord and Burnham Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory at Cornell is crumbling. Excellent article on it’s fate in the Cornell Chronicle.

Built by greenhouse architects Lord & Burnham Co. in 1931 for Liberty Hyde Bailey, the first dean of the College of Agriculture and a prominent palm taxonomist, the facility has deteriorated, with internal and external falling panes of glass, rotting wooden glazing bars and peeling asbestos-laden glazing putty. The college decided, based on advice from the Department of Risk Management and Environmental Health and Safety, to close the Conservatory Greenhouse until a long-term solution can be found.

Restoration costs have proved prohibitive. But “There will be a conservatory in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences,” says Senior Associate Dean Jan Nyrop, who will lead a discussion of the teaching functions of Cornell’s greenhouses Nov. 17 at 4:30 p.m. in 404 Plant Science Building.

Trees and Other Ramifications at the Johnson Museum

I’ve heard great things about a current exhibition Trees and Other Ramifications: Branches in Nature and Culture at the Johnson Museum on the Cornell University campus through January 2. (Exhibit description, page down.)

I haven’t had a chance to go see it yet. But I have explored the museum sponsored Tree Blog that accompanies the exhibition and asks people to join in celebration by submitting images, stories, descriptions, poems, photos, or any other creative response to an inspiring tree. Definitely worth exploring.

Here are some inspiring trees I’ve found on Libe Slope, within spitting distance of the museum. If I’d have let the frame drift a little to the right in the first one, you’d have been able to see the Johnson in the background.

fall pix

Simulated tilt-shift looking south from Uris Library.
tilt shift trials