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Advocates To Explain Jackson Park's Japanese Garden's New Life

By Sam Cholke | April 19, 2016 5:49am
 Robert Karr of Project 120 will talk on May 1 about the work his groups have been doing to restore the Japanese garden at Jackson Park.
Robert Karr of Project 120 will talk on May 1 about the work his groups have been doing to restore the Japanese garden at Jackson Park.
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DNAinfo/Sam Cholke

HYDE PARK — Jackson Park has had a Japanese garden for more than 120 years, and experts on May 1 will explain how it got there and efforts to restore the park.

Bob Karr, who is leading efforts with the nonprofits Project 120 and Garden of the Phoenix to restore the garden, will talk about its history and give a tour starting at 2 p.m. May 1 at the Museum of Science and Industry, 5700 S. Lake Shore Drive.

The talk will be followed by a walking tour of the garden on Wooded Island behind the museum at 3:30 p.m. lead by Karr.

Karr will explain how the gardens and its now-gone pavilion were built for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 and then later entrusted by the Chicago Park District to Shoji Osata and his wife, Frances Fitzpatrick, to maintain from 1935 through 1941.

“During this brief period, the Phoenix Pavilion and its garden became, arguably, the best examples of their kind outside of Japan,” Karr wrote in a 2013 journal article about the garden. “For Shoji and Frances, this would become a place where they could escape the mounting challenges that stemmed from their contrasting cultural backgrounds and interracial marriage.”

Many of the garden’s buildings, including the pavilion and a tea house, were lost to a fire in 1946 though the garden has remained.

Karr is now leading efforts to rebuild the pavilion, restore the garden and bring in new work to complement what already exists, including a new installation work by artist Yoko Ono just outside the gates of the garden.

For more information or to R.S.V.P. for the lecture and tour, visit Project 120’s website.

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