The Hill Center is our community’s cultural treasure. So it’s exciting to share that this fall we will all get to enjoy a new gathering terrace and outdoor sculpture space at the Center. The John Franzén Gathering Terrace will formally open with the official dedication set for Wednesday, October 1st.
It has been a special dream of the Hill Center board and staff to create this welcoming space as a gift to the Capitol Hill community. Now, in addition to all the Center’s great offerings, there is now a wonderful place to gather with friends or sit and enjoy as you wait for your children to finish their classes. Small performances and programming are also planned in the future.
Landscaping the Hill Center
The Gathering Terrace is a great example of the adage that when one door closes, another one opens. Unfortunately, the legacy ash tree that once graced the area outside the Hill Center building had to be cut down when it became diseased by the Emerald Ash Borer. That left a giant space and a window of opportunity to rethink how the outdoor space could be designed and utilized.
With the help of the highly acclaimed landscape firm, Oehme, Van Sweden (OvS), the board happily agreed to the idea of building a gathering terrace in the now vacant space. The new amphitheater-style space will easily accommodate 75 people along its two tiers of seating.
October 1st is a significant day for the historic building which was originally a civil war hospital that admitted its first patients on October 1, 1866. Fast forward 145 years and on October 1, 2011 the renovated Hill Center opened for business. Now, on the same October 1 date this year, the public is welcome to come to the Center for the dedication of the John Franzén Gathering Terrace. The two-hour event will begin at
5:30 p.m. and include a military honor guard presenting colors.
The intersection of military service and community service lives on in the space. Diana Ingraham, executive director of the Hill Center, says, “[the Terrace] integrates joy into the neighborhood while honoring the past.”
Honoring John Franzén
It was also easy for the Board to agree that the space should be dedicated to Franzén, one of its founding members. Nicky Cymrot and Diana Ingraham, both longtime associates of Franzén’s, agree that the Hill Center would never have gotten off the ground without his amazing commitment and hard work. His strategy and communication skills, developed as a political media consultant who ran over 300 winning campaigns, helped garner the support from the DC City Council and define the mission for the Center and Foundation. Franzén, who passed away in 2020, served in many different roles with the Hill Center, including as Chair in its early years. He also served on the board of the Capitol Hill Community Foundation for many years. His family members will be in attendance for the dedication.
New Sculpture Space
In addition to the gathering terrace, the Hill Center is opening its first outdoor sculpture garden that night. Six new sculptures chosen in a juried competition will be unveiled with the winner of the “best in show” awarded a $1,000 art prize. The sculptures will remain in the outdoor spaces around the building for six months. The show was juried by Mary Early. A well-known sculptor with work in collections in Panama, Kimpton Hotels, and DC art bank spaces, Early is also a board member of the Washington Sculptors Group.
Early says the sculpting community is delighted with the new space. “In a city full of art in public places, there are limited spaces for temporary or experimental works by lesser-known or emerging artists.” Submissions from 36 artists were reviewed and Mary notes that the artists whose work was selected “met the scale of the site with a combination of whimsy, respect for nature, and a range of expressive uses of durable materials such as steel, forged iron and wood.”
The six sculptors chosen are Kirk Seese, Breon Gilleran, Mimi Frank, Dayla Luttwak, Nicholas Femia, Todd Smith and Luc Feidler.
The Paper Architect Hack Workshops at the Hill Center
Over the summer months as construction was in full swing outside the Hill Center, another kind of construction has been going on inside and it didn’t involve any mud or tarps. Mandira Sareen, an artist and architect, has been leading Hill residents in building memorials and bridges during her Paper Architect Hack workshops. The 3D paper structures are eloquent and beautiful.
Sareen is an architect and artist who has formed a design company that embraces creating harmonious, sustainable spaces for the well-being of the individual. Her company’s name, Vivastu, incorporates her Indian background and her commitment to bringing her world experiences of living in Asia, Africa and America to the projects she undertakes. In the past year, she has developed or found templates to use to recreate the Golden Gate Bridge, Lincoln Memorial, Frederick Douglass Bridge, and other iconic places.
Her workshop is called a paper architect hack and as she explains “it is a hack as it reimagines architecture through storytelling and hands-on making where anyone can explore form, structure, and meaning with nothing more than paper and presence.” Participants used folding and cutting to build famous buildings and structures. “I like to think I am showing how big ideas don’t need big budgets,” says Mandira whose calm nature comes through in the delicate work.
Mandira provides the materials; an 8.5 inch by 11-inch sheet of paper, glue, and exacto knife. Sometimes participants must try more than once to get the knack of the cutting, but Mandira says everyone always produces a beautiful 3D model at the end of the class. She limits her class size and you must be 14 years or older because of the sharpness of the tools being used. “Besides the finished art piece, the workshop helps develop an inner focus and mental change from the hustle of DC life,” says Mandira.
If you want to give this unique art experience a go, the next workshops are scheduled for Sunday, September 21 from 12:00 to 3:00 pm. For more information go to www.vivasthu.com. There are more workshops scheduled at the Hill Center and National Cathedral.
Rindy O’Brien writes about Capitol Hill’s art and cultural scene, and can be contacted at rindyobrien@gmail.com
