It’s back. The Golden Gate Express garden railway show is back at the at the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Deets below.
Can you see what was made from what?
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These are shots from Nina Sazevich
And these are from Saxon Holt:
The Golden Gate Express
The Conservatory of Flowers’ popular garden railway exhibit steams back into
town for the holidays
SAN FRANCISCO — All aboard The Golden Gate Express for a San Francisco
holiday experience like no other! Golden Gate Park¹s Conservatory of Flowers
brings back its enormously popular garden railway exhibition this winter
with many new features and surprises created by local garden railroad
aficionados and artists from SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc.¹s Artist in
Residence program. It¹s a celebration of the city of San Francisco as a
model train, cable car, streetcar and more wend their way through a lush
landscape of dwarf plants and zip past mini versions of the city¹s landmark
buildings created entirely from recycled materials. New this year also are
some only-in-San Francisco special effects including the sounds of the city
and the twice-daily arrival of the fog. The Golden Gate Express will be on
view November 19, 2009 through April 18, 2010 and opens with a preview gala
November 18, 2009.
All the deets, after the jump.
A brand new layout awaits return visitors one that features a G-gauge
train modeled after a historic San Francisco locomotive looping through the
cityscape, a cable car ascending a San Francisco hill, a streetcar and
miniature cars zooming across the Golden Gate Bridge. This year¹s all-new,
dynamic design is being created by the members of the Bay Area Garden
Railway Society (BAGRS). With over 300 members that have created more than
1000 layouts in backyards around the Bay Area since 1988, BAGRS is the
largest club of its kind in the world with more outdoor railroads than
anywhere else.
Many of the club¹s members came to last year¹s exhibit, designed by model
train enthusiast and Professor of Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley Chip
Sullivan, and were highly enthusiastic about continuing the exhibit as an
annual event. Chief among those was BAGRS past President and the author of
the definitive book How to Design and Build Your Garden Railroad, Jack
Verducci of San Mateo. ³This is a chance for us to share our passion and
create something lots of people can see,² he says. ³Most of our railroads
are at our homes and not so accessible. At the Conservatory, we¹ll be able
to bring this great family hobby to everyone and hopefully get them excited
about trying it themselves.²
Verducci promises a lay out with lots of fun features including bridges,
tunnels, California-specific landscaping and even a change in the weather.
At 11:15 AM and 4:15 PM each day, San Francisco¹s famous fog will roll in
under the Golden Gate and envelop the mini City in mystery.
In addition to the new layout, several new miniature San Francisco landmarks
join the eleven buildings that were fabricated last year. Debuting this year
will be San Francisco¹s City Hall, the Palace of Fine Arts, the Castro
Theater, the Painted Ladies, Lotta¹s Fountain, the California Academy of
Science¹s Living Roof, AT&T Park and historic Firehouse #37 built in Potrero
Hill in 1917. The new landmarks, like last year¹s Conservatory of Flowers,
Japanese Tea Garden pagoda, Golden Gate Bridge, Mission Dolores, Chinatown
Gate, Transamerica Pyramid, Ferry Building, Coit Tower, Ghirardelli Square,
Bently Reserve and Merchant Exchange Building, will be made entirely of
recycled and repurposed materials, reflecting present day San Francisco¹s
cutting edge commitment to sustainability and the Conservatory¹s own
environmental mission.
To create several of the new buildings, the Conservatory has teamed up with
Bessie Kunath, an artist who has had a long love affair with San Francisco¹s
dump. Kunath was a Student Artist in Residence with SF Recycling & Disposal,
Inc. that maintains an art studio at its Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling
Center and provides select artists with 24-hour access to San Francisco¹s
refuse. She worked with the program for six years, lured by its mission and
the creative treasures to be found in the city¹s garbage. ³It¹s like
shopping,² says Kunath. ³Artists that work there call it The Big Store
because anything you can imagine needing will eventually turn up.²
For the exhibition, Kunath is crafting the Palace of Fine Arts and San
Francisco¹s City Hall exclusively with materials from the dump. The dome of
the 1915 Palace is a ceiling light fixture standing on recycled wood columns
and adorned with bits and pieces from a discarded children¹s science
activity kit in homage to the Palace¹s longtime resident, the Exploratorium.
City Hall sports a roof decoupaged with bits of city newspapers, pages from
a book outlining statistical analysis of population growth and bits of civic
documents. A computer keyboard stands in for the stairs leading up to the
building and a handful of gold pens create its gilt finial.
Kunath was thrilled to be invited to participate in the exhibition. ³It¹s
really exciting for me as an advocate of recycling,² she says. ³The
Conservatory didn¹t have to go this route. The buildings could have all been
perfect little brand new models, but they specifically chose to use
recyclables and to educate the public in this fun way. It¹s so appropriate
for San Francisco.²
Kunath¹s colleague from the dump, James Sellier, is producing the historic
firehouse, and the Conservatory¹s own staff and volunteers have had a hand
in some of the other new features including horticulturist Mario Vega who
fashioned Lotta¹s Fountain from a cast off chandelier and volunteer Nicole
Passerotti who is crafting AT&T Park.
As with last year¹s exhibit, the landmarks are surrounded by a magical
landscape of miniature gardens and parks with living plants including dwarf
conifers, mosses and tiny flowers. The landscape will be replanted several
times throughout the run of the exhibition to showcase a colorful variety of
seasonal blooms and the transition from winter to spring.
New this year is the addition of audio effects that will bring the sounds of
the city to life. As the train zips around the track, visitors can listen to
the joyous noise of Chinese New Year, the barking of resident sea lions, the
cheering crowd at the ball park, the ringing bells of cable cars, the Castro
Theater¹s organ, fog horns, the rumbling of an earthquake and much more. The
special soundscape is the work of Andrew Roth of Natural Sounds in San
Francisco.
Also new this year will be a children¹s interactive train set designed to
allow young visitors a chance to operate a mini locomotive, a San Francisco
history treasure hunt also for children and several short videos that allow
visitors to see the process of creating the landmarks, the other Bay Area
gardens created by BAGRS and more.
³We are delighted to be teaming up with local garden railroaders and artists
to create an even more magical experience for our visitors this holiday
season,² says Brent Dennis, the Conservatory¹s Director. ³The whole ŒHoney,
I shrunk the city!¹ impact of the exhibit thrilled just about everyone last
year no matter what age and we¹re excited to be bringing it back with all of
the new features. It¹s a real celebration of the things that make San
Francisco unique — our architecture, our history, our parks and also our
creativity and leadership in the environmental movement. What better place
to showcase this than the city¹s 130-year-old glass monument to the natural
world?²
The exhibition kicks off with a preview gala entitled Tropics, Treasures and
Trains on November 18, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. that celebrates the romance of the
rails and raises funds for the Conservatory¹s youth environmental education
programs. Gala guests will be the first to see The Golden Gate Express and
have the rare chance to experience the Conservatory at night. Guests also
enjoy premium wines and ³Station Stops² of tantalizing treats. Tickets are
$130 per person and can be purchased at www.conservatoryofflowers.org
<http://www.conservatoryofflowers.org> .
The Golden Gate Express is open Tuesdays Sundays from 9 am to 4:30 pm and
is included with admission to the Conservatory. Admission for San Francisco
residents is $5 general; $3 youth 12-17, seniors and students with ID; $1.50
children 5-11; children 4 and under FREE. Admission for non-residents is $7
general, $5 youth 12-17, seniors and students with ID; $2 children 5-11;
children 4 and under FREE. The public should call (415) 831-2090 or visit
www.conservatoryofflowers.org <http://www.conservatoryofflowers.org> for
more information.
Background
The Conservatory of Flowers is a spectacular living museum of rare and
beautiful tropical plants under glass. From Borneo to Bolivia, the 1,750
species of plants at the Conservatory represent unusual flora from more than
50 countries around the world. Immersive displays in five galleries include
the lowland tropics, highland tropics, aquatic plants, potted plants and
special exhibits. Opened in 1879, the wood and glass greenhouse is the
oldest existing conservatory in North America and has attracted millions of
visitors to Golden Gate Park since it first opened its doors. It is
designated as a city, state and national historic landmark and was one of
the 100 most endangered sites of the World Monuments Fund.
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