Botanical Conservatory

The Rose Hills Foundation
Conservatory for
Botanical Science

In the News - June 18, 2007:

Conservatory for Botanical Science Wins Grand Prize

American Association of Museums cites Conservatory’s “Plants are Up to Something” exhibition for outstanding innovation, design

Kids and families knew it from the start, but now the museum community has confirmed it: For outstanding innovation and exceptional design, The Huntington’s Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory of Botanical Science has been awarded the grand prize in the Annual Excellence in Exhibition Competition sponsored by the American Association of Museums.

The award recognizes outstanding achievement in exhibitions at museums, zoos, aquariums, and botanical gardens across the nation. Judging by peer professionals is based on a comprehensive set of criteria, including content, collections, audience awareness, interpretation, and design. An additional set of standards for excellence looks at qualities such as innovation, beauty, and new insights offered to visitors. The 16,000-sq.ft Conservatory, with its engaging hands-on science activities, rare tropical plants, and emphasis on family learning, received top honors in a field of 23 national entries.

Press Release

About the Conservatory

The Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science is the cornerstone of a multi-phased botanical education center at the Huntington. Opened in October 2005, this striking building added a public exhibition and interactive learning space to the existing facilities for botanical research.

A $1.75 million grant from the National Science Foundation is funding the educational components of the Conservatory, focusing on kids ages 9 to 12. Four distinct "environments" have been created for different hands-on botanical exhibits: the central Tropical Forest Rotunda, the Cloud Forest, the Carnivorous Plant Bog, and the Field Lab. Living plant displays, water features, and interactive learning stations invite active exploration and discovery.

One of the building's occupants is a plant that needs no introduction: The Huntington's famous "Stinky Flower," the Amorphophallus titanum, resides here.

The Conservatory takes its inspiration from a Victorian-style lath house that was built on the Huntington estate in the early 20th century. The original structure, long since dismantled, had an open-work construction of redwood slats that allowed filtered sunlight and ample circulation of outside air. Its function was part nursery, part storage area, as well as a space for displaying plants such as palms, ferns, rhododendrons, and cyclamens.

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Visit the Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science website

Take a virtual tour of the Conservatory, plant flowers in the digital garden, explore the plant database, discover fun plant activities to try at home, and much more!

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Echoing its historic predecessor in its general outlines, the 16,000 sq.-ft. Conservatory creates a visual link to The Huntington's past while complementing the other historic buildings on the property. Placed on an axis with the neoclassical rotunda of the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery loggia to the south and the circular, double-colonnaded Mausoleum to the north, the building links gardens and galleries in a graceful transition.

The architectural firm of Offenhauser Associates Inc. has given the Conservatory a fresh interpretation for a new century, with an updated design and function to accommodate a new generations of users. The design moves away from the Victorian influence seen in many similar turn-of-the-century structures, and leans instead towards the industrial / pre-Art Deco style of the late teens and early 1920s, the era of The Huntington's founding.

Exhibition design was by Gordon Chun Design working with Independent Exhibitions. Ironwood Scenic did the fabrication. Deneen Powell Atelier Inc. developed the interior landscape design. Integrating education goals with enticing and enchanting plantings, the exhibition brings plants and the processes of science alive.

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