Site Ecology: Land

The late landscape architect William A. Rutherford Sr., who worked for forty-five years to create this landscape for large outdoor sculpture, described Storm King as first and foremost “an environmental project.” Rutherford was referring to the vision of Storm King’s founder, Ralph E. Ogden, and Founding Chair, H. Peter Stern: to acquire and reclaim land adjacent to Storm King’s Museum Hill, which had been devastated by the construction in the 1950s of the New York State Thruway. From its founding in 1960, Storm King has prioritized environmental projects including land conservation, reclamation of industrial sites for sensitive landscaping for art using native plants, and preservation of wildlife habitat corridors in the Hudson Valley.