Grace Farms in Connecticut

This week-end Ed and I went to Philip Johnson's Glass House for a tour.

I was informed the tickets I had procured were for NEXT Saturday. So, instead, we visited Grace Farms, right up the road on the border of Connecticut and New York.

The Grace Farms site

Grace Farms is not a farm. Instead it is a a site specific public open space. It had previously been a horse farm, and some of the paddocks are still there. To quote the web site:

Grace Farms is a humanitarian and cultural center serving local and global communities

It is a place for meaningful interaction where people of all ages, experiences and interests come to collaborate for good and pursue peace within Grace Farm’s 80 acres.

Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder, envisioned that intentionally-designed space could communicate a set of values and advance good in the world for years to come. Pritzker Prize-winning architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, of the Japanese firm SANAA, embodied this vision into the design of the River building and barns, creating a site with social and spiritual potential.

The result is a hopeful environment where grace and peace take shape.

The Japanese architects designed a snaking set of buildings with a covered canopy connecting them like a creek bed. This is the part that fascinated Ed and me. There were also place for kids to play and explore. Albeit, we tended to avoid those places.

The overview picture above is not mine. The rest are.

The Pavilions from the base  of the hill

The pavilion above is the library where books about nature, rewilding and spiritual topics are housed.

Entrance to the theater

Interior of the Theater with no interior pillers.

It was, as they say, a grand day out.