“In Frederic Church’s Ombra: Architecture in Conversation with Nature” is a new exhibition on view at Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, New York. Hudson River School painter Frederic Church worked with Central Park architect Calvert Vaux to create Olana’s main house. Their design incorporated vast Hudson Valley views. A key space in Olana’s main house design is the “Ombra”, an outdoor room which is a transition zone between the central Court Hall and the surrounding landscape. In the new exhibition, several architects have paired with visual artists and other designers to develop their concepts and treatments regarding the indoor-outdoor spaces at Olana.
The exhibition is guest-curated by Barry Bergdoll, the Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University and a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Featured speakers from our visit to Olana, in addition to Barry Bergdoll: Senior Vice President and Landscape Curator at The Olana Partnership, Mark Prezorski; Jennifer Sage, one of the architects who created work for “In Frederic Church’s Ombra: Architecture in Conversation with Nature,” Sage and Coombe Architects is located in New York City and led by Jennifer Sage and Peter Coombe; and Stan Allen, an architect working in the Hudson River Valley and George Dutton ’27 Professor of Architecture at Princeton University.
“In Frederic Church’s Ombra: Architecture in Conversation with Nature” is on view through November 3, 2019.