The American Lawn:  Surface of Everyday Life

Also on FloridaTurf.com:  "The Making of The American Lawn"

Answers:  Come 3 September 1999 and find out.  The Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, is located at One East Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, FL   33301 Phone 954-525-5500.  The exhibit is sponsored by Ryder, Edward D. Stone, Jr. and Associates, and Design Center of the Americas.  The evening of 3 September is the private gallery talk and party for museum members.  Non members can come at 8 p.m. and enjoy an under-the-stars viewing of the cult classic, Caddyshack, complete with popcorn and miniature golf.  And if you can't make it to opening night, the exhibit is continuing until the end of the millennium, specifically 2 January 2000.

Having contributed small parts of this exhibit, I (Phil Busey) don't know what this really is until I see it.  It was a few days before Christmas, 1996, when I was contacted by  someone associated with Diller + Scofidio, Architects.  She asked a lot of general questions about grass.  We get a lot of calls about lawns, but usually they concern problems.  This call was different.  These people were looking at grass in different way.

During the next 2.5 years, they asked me questions about the color of grass, how many grasses are there, and what would happen if you tried to preserve a sample of grass for a museum.  Eventually they asked me to provide them some grass.  Which I did.

When I saw the billboard with the reworking of the American flag, I was apprehensive that what the Canadian Centre for Architecture has put together may be a little over the edge.  Will my friends in lawn maintenance wonder what this has to do with running a business?  The text from the press release says, "Bungalows in tract developments, suburban corporate headquarters, and the White House are all alike in that they sit behind a lawn: a carefully contrived patch of "nature" that lies open to the sky and to a multitude of uses and meanings."

It is time that we stand back and think about the deeper cultural meaning of grass.

The American Lawn (and related) links

Press release  issued by Canadian Centre for Architecture.

British Lawn Mower Museum  Don't miss the greens horse mower.

Buy the book  The American Lawn:  Surface of Everyday Life, by Georges Teyssot (ed.)

Critique of The American Lawn  By frieze, a London art magazine.

Equal Rights  National Lawn Care Now!  A parody.

Law and lawn  Turf wars?  Neighbor won't cut the grass?  John Marshall Law Review looks at the law and the natural lawn movement?

The Lawn  Thomas Jefferson's dream lawn lives on at the University of Virginia.  Interactive tour.

The grass is always greener  "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence:   An American proverb of discontent."

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