My friend Jing Yang’s Mum came from China to visit her and her husband in July and stayed for about two months in Washington DC. and Harrisburg. As Jing showed her Mum around, they decided to come to Pittsburgh to take a tour.
As a two-year-old self-adopted Pittsburgher, I was proudly showing them around. It’s a hot summer day, so we decided to go to Phipps Conservatory to spend a day. It’s cool, exotic, beautiful, and full of life there.
Before this visit, I often witnessed those young marrying couples taking their wedding pictures or having their ceremonies in the Conservatory. I also often admired the beauty of the glass architecture and its reflections in the pond outside of it, as well as how nature in different seasons cast their prints onto this Victorian building in Oakland. Truly, beauty lies in everything we set our eyes upon. Yet Phipps Conservatory is a place that adds beauty to its surroundings even you are not looking for it with any efforts at all. It’s there, beautiful and quiet, but you just can’t move your eyes away from it and wonder “Wow, how can an architecture be so incredible.”
While you are in the building, wandering around and about, taking in those colors, shapes, and charms from the known and unknown plants from all over the globe, you couldn’t help but relaxing, giving yourself to the nature, and starting to be vulnerable allowing yourself to be attacked by any small incidence that come to your eyesight.
I talked to a staff member in its live building center, and was surprised by his knowledge of science, philosophy, and interest in Chinese culture.
It’s a wonderful experience with my beloved Chinese friends in such an extraordinary sight that can make you unsure about your own whereabouts, in both time and location. And It was added some extra unexpected sweetness by a stranger who had so many to offer and just wanted to strike a conversation.
Beer winning trivia @ Phipps Conservatory
1. The gardens were founded in 1893 by steel and real-estate magnate Henry Phipps as a gift to the City of Pittsburgh. Its purpose is to educate and entertain the people of Pittsburgh with formal gardens (Roman, English, etc.) and various species of exotic plants. Currently, the facilities house elaborate gardens within the thirteen room conservatory itself and on the adjoining grounds. In addition to its primary Flora exhibits, the sophisticated glass and metalwork of the Lord & Burnham conservatory offers an interesting example of Victorian greenhouse architecture.
Phipps is one of the "greenest" facilities in the world. The entrance pavilion of the Phipps Conservatory has silver-level LEED certification. Its Center for Sustainable Landscapes has received a Platinum certification along with fulfilling the Living Building Challenge for net-zero energy, and its greenhouse production facility has received Platinum certification, the first and only greenhouse to be so certified.
2. Lord & Burnham, a noted American boiler and greenhouse manufacturers, and builders of major public conservatories in the United States. The company began in 1849 when Frederick A. Lord, a carpenter, started building wood and glass greenhouses for neighbors in Buffalo, New York. It became Lord's full time profession in 1856 as production moved to Syracuse, New York and then to Irvington, New York to be closer to his customers in the large Hudson River estates. In 1872 Lord's son-in-law William Addison Burnham joined the firm. Their first major commission came in the 1876 when California philanthropist James Lick hired the firm to create a 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m2) conservatory. Its parts were fabricated in New York and sailed to California. After Lick's death, it became the Golden Gate Park Conservatory of Flowers. In 1883 the partnership incorporated as Lord's Horticultural Manufacturing Company, and in 1890 the name was changed to today's Lord & Burnham Company.
Your ID @ Phipps Conservatory
There are three sculptures outside of Phipps Conservatory (close to Panther Hollow Bridge side). Who are the three people those sculptures carved?
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