Neighborhood News: Garfield Park Conservatory is a tropical oasis for a cold winter day
The Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park Avenue, was described as “landscape art under glass” when it opened in 1908. Today, it occupies two acres of public greenhouse space and 10 acres of outdoor gardens. Year-round, visitors can enjoy the lush flora and tropical temperatures indoors, and more than 10 acres of outdoor gardens, nature play spaces for children, water lily pond, and much more.
The beginning
Garfield Park, originally called Central Park, was one of three parks on the city’s West Side (including Humboldt and Douglas parks), according to a feature produced by WTTW. It was designed by William LeBaron Jenney, opened in 1874, and was renamed in 1881 for President James Garfield after his assassination.
According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago History, conservatories grew out of 19th century citizens concerned with the ill effects of industrialization. City dwellers became fascinated with horticulture. This, along with advances in building technology, led to the development of conservatories in Europe early in the century.
In 1905, Jens Jensen was appointed as superintendent and chief landscape architect by a reform-minded board. He demolished three poorly maintained facilities to construct one centralized facility in Garfield Park, intended as the world’s largest conservatory.
While most conservatories in the era looked like palaces or chateaus, Jensen wanted the structure’s form to emulate the “great haystacks” of the Midwest. As the Encyclopedia of Chicago History noted, Jensen’s featured compositions with open vistas, surrounded by artfully arranged plantings.
Constructed between 1906 and 1907, the Garfield Park Conservatory was designed in collaboration with Prairie School architects Schmidt, Garden and Martin and the New York engineering firm of Hitchings and Company. It represented a unique collaboration of a prominent landscape architect with architects and engineers.
Jensen considered the Fern Room in particular, with its “prairie waterfall”—a stone and water element within a glass structure—to be one of his greatest achievements.
Today
Chicago’s Garfield Park Conservatory is one of the largest and most stunning botanical conservatories in the nation. the conservatory. In the building’s haystack shape and walls of stratified stonework, about 120,000 plants representing some 600 species occupy the conservatory’s two acres and indoor spaces. Twice a year, flower shows premiere to celebrate the beginning of winter and spring.
Garfield Park Conservatory consists of several rooms of exotic and local plants, trees, flora and fauna. Take for example:
Sugar from the Sun
As their website says, four themed botanical environments – water, air, sunlight, and sugar – help visitors discover how right now, inside every leaf, plants are capturing sunlight and using it to change small parts of air and water into sugar – the energy that sustains life on Earth.
In the Fern Room, the designers wanted to give visitors a glimpse of what Illinois might have looked like millions of years ago. Lush ferns, rocky outcroppings and an indoor lagoon evoke the swampy landscape of prehistoric Chicago.
The Palm Room, at 65 feet high and 90 feet wide, is the largest room in the Conservatory. It is designed as an idealized tropical landscape, featuring more than 70 graceful palms, as well as other plants from warm habitats all around the world.
Conservatory Programs
On Saturdays and Sundays from 10:30am to 2:30pm, Nature Educators will provide activities for kids of all ages at their Budding Botanists stations. This program is included in all reservations to visit the Conservatory. You can stop by and interact with the materials at the station for as long as you want to.
Art After Dark
Join GPCA’s Nature Educators on Wednesday evenings to explore and discover together! This free, drop-in program is designed for kids and families meets every Wednesday from 4pm-7:30pm and is available for children ages 4 and up.
Activities follow themes of nature and science, but with a special focus on learning, processing, and making personal connections through art.
Families can enjoy open-ended collaborative or individual projects, nature journal prompts inspired by the Conservatory collection and conversations about Chicago’s ecosystems and our place in them, in a calm and inviting atmosphere!
Garfield Park Conservatory is open Wednesday from10am-8pm (last entry 7:15pm), and Thursday – Sunday 10am-5pm (last entry 4:15pm). They are closed Monday and Tuesday.
Reservations are required, and advance reservations are strongly recommended. They accept arrivals within 30 minutes of your reservation time. For more information and reservations, click here.
Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago
