NORTH PARK — In a perfect marriage of setting and subject, a documentary on Chicago parks pioneer Jens Jensen will screen Friday at North Park Village Nature Center as part of the Movies in the Parks series.
Catch "The Living Green" at 8:30 p.m. Friday at the center, 5801 N. Pulaski Road.
Though less well known than Frank Lloyd Wright, Jensen is considered as influential a landscape architect as Wright is a building designer.
Danish immigrant Jensen (1860–1951) arrived in Chicago at a point when the fast-growing city was considered a wretched place to live — too many people crammed into squalid tenements.
Jensen championed the right of all Chicagoans to have access to green space, regardless of income. His masterpieces include the creation of Columbus Park and significant redesigns of Humboldt Park, Garfield Park and Douglas Park.
The hallmarks of Jensen's "prairie style" include meadows, layered stonework, natural waterways and indigenous plants.
Jensen's use of native plants, revolutionary at the time, sparked a shift in landscaping that Chicago's gardeners continue to practice to this day. Though he didn't design the Nature Center, the park bears the stamp of the tradition he helped found.
Echoes of Jensen's conservation efforts — he beat back Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan's bid to industrialize Indiana's shoreline — can also be found in the Nature Center, which exists largely thanks to neighbors' fight to preserve the acreage from development.
"The Living Green," by Chicago filmmaker Carey Lundin, has earned awards from the Chicago International Film Festival, the Green Bay Film Festival and Wild Rose International Film Fest.
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