Monet’s garden

The Pasadena art museum was going bankrupt when Norton and Jennifer Simon paid off the debt and took it over. In 1995, Jennifer  asked Frank Gehry and landscape designer Nancy Goslee Power to redesign the museum and its garden, wishing to reproduce the magic of Monet’s garden in Giverny. 

A blah, rectangular concrete basin was replaced with a water lily pond featuring more natural shapes. Numerous hundred-year-old trees were brought in to create a Japanese garden atmosphere.  And the few acres of land were planted with fragrant plants, grasses, and varieties of plants that bloom according to the subtle changes of the Californian seasons.
 
Then to give the place some color, the Simons added painting by Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh (EXTRA), Picasso, Matisse, Manet, Kandinsky, Klee, and Sam Francis and many magnificent sculptures.