THE YOUNG PROGRAM

Stretching from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia’s grand, tree-lined Benjamin Franklin Parkway is flanked by some of the city’s most acclaimed institutions. Visitors to the Parkway Museums District will discover a cultural mecca with world-class museums and educational institutions, the magnificent Swann Memorial Fountain, Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul on Logan Square and the world famous “Rocky” steps. The Parkway also gives off an international flavor by being lined with flags of countries from around the world.

The Benjamin Franklin Parkway represents one of the earliest examples of urban renewal in the United States. The grand boulevard was constructed to ease heavy industrial congestion, connect Center City to Fairmount Park and restore Philadelphia’s natural and artistic beauty.

Beginning in 1892, City Council received the first proposal and petition to develop the Fairmount Parkway, passed a bill to begin plans for building it, adopted a plan developed by Horace Trumbauer, Clarence Zantzinger and Paul P. Cret and finally in 1917, ten years after ground-breaking, adopted French urban planner Jacques Gréber’s design to emulate the Champs-Élysées in Paris. In 1937, the name of the Fairmount Parkway was officially changed to honor the city’s most celebrated citizen, Benjamin Franklin.

Public Art

The Parkway Museums District is home to over 30 works of public art, featuring masterpieces by three generations of Calders, including the Swann Memorial Fountain, William Penn on top of City Hall and the Shakespeare Memorial, as well as Auguste Rodin’s Thinker, Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE, Emmanuel Frémiet’s Joan of Arc, and Mark di Suvero’s Iroquois. For more detailed information about our neighborhood you can learn more about the Parkway’s public art at associationforpublicart.org

EXHIBITION SPACE

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... genius can be bounded in nutshell and embrace the whole fullness of life

- Thomas Mann

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... genius can be bounded in nutshell and embrace the whole fullness of life

- Thomas Mann

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THE PARKWAY MUSEUM DISTRICT

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It has collections of more than 227,000 objects that include “world-class holdings of European and American paintings, prints, drawings, and decorative arts”.

Called the Parthenon on the Parkway, the main building was co-designed in 1907 by prominent architects Julian Abele and Howell Le (Abele was the first African American to design a major museum in the nation). There are more than 200 galleries displaying examples of art and craft spanning over 2,000 years of history.

The Franklin Institute is a science museum and center of science education and research in Philadelphia. It is named in honor of the noted American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin, and houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial. Founded in 1824, the Franklin Institute is one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States.

The largest collection of works by sculptor Auguste Rodin outside France.

... genius can be bounded in nutshell and embrace the whole fullness of life

- Thomas Mann

Hosts an amazing collection of impressionist, post-impressionist and early modern art.

... genius can be bounded in nutshell and embrace the whole fullness of life

- Thomas Mann

... genius can be bounded in nutshell and embrace the whole fullness of life

- Thomas Mann

Logan Circle is one of Penn’s original five squares. The square has become a circle, the Swann Memorial Fountain by Alexander Stirling Calder, a graceful aerial water ballet, the flower beds among the most brilliant in Philadelphia. It is a medallion in the parkway’s necklace of gems.