Musée Albert Kahn

Between the warm, April showers in Paris, our friends took us to a unique garden and museum near the Bois de Bologne just north of Paris. This museum is the former home of financier and humanitarian, Albert Kahn (1860 - 1940).

Kahn was a proponent of internationalism and felt that institutions of finance, art and science could break down cultural barriers. From 1909 to 1931, he hired photographers to travel the world, recording different cultures and customs. The result was a collection of 72,000 autochromes and photographs and 600,000 feet of film that are archived in the museum.

The gardens outside the museum reflect his philosophy by representing gardens from around the world and their native species.

This hill of azaleas resides in the Japanese garden and is meant to represent Mt. Fiji.

Among the plants that are also represented in the Lurie Garden, I found:

Epimedium x versicolor 'Sulphureum' (Bishop's Hat), a delicate plant with pale yellow flowers and heart-shaped leaves. It is found where the edge of the Dark Plate meets the Cloud Plaza. At this moment in the Lurie Garden, its leaves are beautifully mottled - bronze-colored, with veins outlined in green.

Rodgersia pinnata 'Superba' (Featherleaf Rodgersia) is planted is both the center Dark Plate and across the Plaza in the center Frame. As its leaves unfold in spring, they are a rich claret color, then later change to green. Its creamy pink flowers appear later in astilbe-like panicles above the foliage mound. By fall, the leaves have turned to red-bronze, giving another season of interest.