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Employees of the Missouri Botanical Garden mingle in front of a video board during an open house for employees and their families at the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
Missouri Botanical Garden president Peter Wyse Jackson says he heard the word over and over from donors and employees at preview parties this week for the new, $100 million Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center.
“People weren’t just saying it,” said Wyse Jackson. “It was the whole sense of place. Their garden has been enhanced and strengthened, because it fits so well into the garden’s landscape.”
The garden, at 4344 Shaw Boulevard, will host the center’s grand opening ceremony for the public at 10 a.m. Saturday with free admission Saturday and Sunday, courtesy of the Pohlmann Legacy. In lieu of a traditional ribbon cutting with giant scissors, Wyse Jackson will cut a fresh greenery garland with gardening shears.
There will be live music, storytelling and other special events, as well as refreshments from local vendors. The revamped Sassafras Restaurant and Cafe will be open.
The center was privately funded by more than 12,000 individuals, foundations and donors, with a lead gift from the Taylor family.
The atrium over the new Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center is described as a lantern, with aluminum panels punched with holes to make a ginkgo design out of light and shadow. Employees of the Missouri Botanical Garden got an early look at the space during an open house for employees on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
Visitors can see for themselves if it has that “wow” factor. They’ll look up and notice the more than 50-foot-tall glass “lantern” in the center above the main hall. It’s fashioned with punctured aluminum screens that cast shadows mimicking a ginkgo tree canopy.
They’ll look down and see the terrazzo floor, which is inlaid with smoothed river stone as well as hundreds of brass outlines of leaves from Missouri native trees: bitternut hickory, pawpaw, black walnut, hackberry.
The buzzphrase here is “biophilic design,” an approach that seeks to connect buildings and their occupants to nature.
Inlaid terrazzo floors are seen inside the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
Connecting people to nature was a real issue in the old visitor center, which got the wrecking ball in February 2020. The Ridgway Center, built in 1982, was meant to accommodate 250,000 visitors a year. These days, the garden gets more than a million. Getting people through the doors and up the stairs or elevator to the garden was a confusing, often bottlenecked venture, with some wanderers asking: “Where’s the garden?”
To enter the new center, visitors first climb outdoor steps or ramp, passing by beds of trees, plants and flowers to be planted in spring. So the garden experience starts from the parking lot, planners say. When people enter the building and look through the lobby and through the rear glass doors, it’s obvious the larger garden awaits.
The Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden is seen during an open house for employees ends on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
The visitor center doors align with a giant ginkgo tree in the garden that dates to the era of founder Henry Shaw. The doors of the adjacent event space, which has served as a temporary ticketing center and gift shop, align with the doors of the brick Linnean House. The axis expands all the way to Tower Grove House at the back of the garden.
Project manager Joel Fidler with Baltimore-based architect Ayers Saint Gross worked with St. Louis-based Tao and Lee Associates on the design. Michael Vergason is the landscape architect, and Alberici is managing construction.
“Obviously, the garden is so beloved in St. Louis,” said Fidler. “And even broader than that, to have people come through and say things, like, ‘Oh, I didn't realize the Climatron was so close,’ or, ‘the Linnean House looks so much different,’ you really feel like you're having a significant impact on how people see the garden.”
Peter Tao grew up in St. Louis. His parents, William and Anne Tao, were Chinese immigrants instrumental in starting the Chinese cultural festival now held at the gardens. He was happy to incorporate the garden’s story into the design.
One main focus was the revamped Sassafras Restaurant and Cafe, which features white acrylic ceiling light fixtures that look like oversized roses. A carved log bench and communal tabletop was created from a Shumard oak tree that was dying and had to be felled for the construction. Clear panels tell food stories about seeds, grapes and other edible crops.
The outdoor dining patio at the Sassafras Restaurant and Cafe in the new Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center is about twice the size of the former one at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Employees sampled the center and its food during an open house on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Photo by Robert Cohen, rcohen@post-dispatch.com
“It’s neat,” Tao said. “Each one has a story, and a lot of it is either about what you might find locally or its about something the garden researches.” One panel, on seed diversity, his firm sponsored in honor of his parents.
Also new at the center:
Workers install solar panels on the roof of the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022. The solar panels will produce an average of 300 megawatt hours per year, resulting in a reduction of carbon emissions roughly equivalent to the annual output required to power 33.3 homes for a year.
The garden is seeking LEED certification for its efforts, which include two 25,000-gallon cisterns to collect rainwater to quench its flora and solar panels still being installed on the roof. The crews experienced some supply chain issues because of the pandemic but were able to navigate them, said Deniz Piskin, the garden’s vice president of facilities and construction.
In September, work begins on transforming the temporary visitor center to the east into the Bayer Event Center, which can accommodate weddings that can seat 350 people. That space is expected to open in the spring.
The garden’s horticulture team will start planting the new gardens outside the building to the north and south. Workers will add more than 30,500 plants, including rare and endangered species that tell more about the garden’s research worldwide.
Leo Engelhardt, 9, watches an ever-changing video board as employees of the Missouri Botanical Garden and their families enjoy an open house at the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Photo by Robert Cohen, rcohen@post-dispatch.com
Wyse Jackson knows the center will be an example for gardens around the world and hopes it becomes the destination for major international conferences and meetings.
“We’re so pleased,” he said, adding that the results of years of planning exceeded his expectations. “It really enhances and opens a new era for the Missouri Botanical Garden.”
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Valerie Schremp Hahn is a features writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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The Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center is set to open Aug. 27.
Here are a few of our staff picks for things to do Aug. 26-Sept. 1.
Employees of the Missouri Botanical Garden mingle in front of a video board during an open house for employees and their families at the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
The atrium over the new Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center is described as a lantern, with aluminum panels punched with holes to make a ginkgo design out of light and shadow. Employees of the Missouri Botanical Garden got an early look at the space during an open house for employees on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
Inlaid terrazzo floors are seen inside the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
The Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden is seen during an open house for employees ends on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.
The outdoor dining patio at the Sassafras Restaurant and Cafe in the new Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center is about twice the size of the former one at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Employees sampled the center and its food during an open house on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Photo by Robert Cohen, rcohen@post-dispatch.com
Workers install solar panels on the roof of the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis on Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022. The solar panels will produce an average of 300 megawatt hours per year, resulting in a reduction of carbon emissions roughly equivalent to the annual output required to power 33.3 homes for a year.
Leo Engelhardt, 9, watches an ever-changing video board as employees of the Missouri Botanical Garden and their families enjoy an open house at the Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022. Photo by Robert Cohen, rcohen@post-dispatch.com
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