Community Planning and Landscape Architecture
Howard Ben Tre’ to discuss Sculpture and the Landscape Feb. 7
KINGSTON, R.I. — January 23, 2002 — Internationally acclaimed artist Howard Ben Tre’, a pioneer in the use of cast glass as a sculptural medium, will kick off the University of Rhode Island’s spring Community Planning and Landscape Architecture lecture series on Feb. 7. He will discuss “Sculpture and the Landscape: Thoughts on Creating Outdoor Environments.”
All lectures in the series address the theme of accommodating change. They begin at 7:30 p.m. and are held in the White Hall auditorium on the Kingston Campus. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Ben Tre’ is widely recognized for his public art projects that often feature fountains and carefully positioned landscaping elements. His works are on display in more than 70 museums and public collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. His “Water Forest” will be a central piece at the entrance to the new Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Wash., which is scheduled to open in July.
His cast glass sculptures are massive in scale and are made with teams of workers in industrial glass factories. They often require three months or more to cool from their molten state. The internal fissures and breaks in the glass – usually the reason that glassblowers discard a piece — are essential elements of Ben Tre’s sculptures.
He studied art at Portland State University in Oregon, the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington, and Rhode Island School of Design. Ben Tre’ lives in Providence.
The rest of the lecture series schedule is as follows:
Thursday, Feb. 28 – Landscape designer Warren Leach, owner of Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth, Mass., on “Changing Landscapes in Southern New England.” Leach’s designs integrate intimate knowledge of plant materials, especially herbaceous perennials, with the landscape to create designs that are sensitive to their sites.
Thursday, March 21 – Marion Pressley, principal of Pressley Associates of Cambridge, Mass., on “Preservation, Restoration and Rehabilitation of Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace,” a group of public parks in the Boston area. She has expertise in historic master planning and the restoration and rehabilitation of public parks and private historical properties.
Thursday, April 18 – Distinguished horticulturist, landscape architect and author Wolfgang Oehme, on “Reflecting on a New American Garden Style.” Oehme is principal of Oehme, van Sweden & Associates in Washington, D.C., which is largely responsible for popularizing the use of ornamental grasses.
Sponsors of the lecture series are the URI Department of Community Planning and Landscape Architecture, the URI College of the Environment and Life Sciences, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association.
For more information about the lecture series, call the URI Department of Community Planning and Landscape Architecture at 874-2249 or email Professor Will Green at wagre@uri.edu.
For Information: Will Green 874-2142, Todd McLeish 874-7892