The City Zen Garden is an public art collaboration between Sherryl Muriente, her husband Beju, and Finnish artist Marco Casagrande. The project was designed as a meditation garden and it opened in December of 2018 in front of the Broadstone Apartments in West Palm Beach. The garden is part of the West Palm Beach's Art in Public Places program which requires developers to either donate to a public art fund or build public art on their site. In this case they chose to create art. The artists worked in collaboration with Alliance Residential Company which developed the apartments at the corner of Datura Street and Dixie Highway. Alliance donated 10,000 square feet of their property in order to fulfill the requirement.
City Zen Garden was designed to draw people in. It has a circular courtyard with a small amphitheater with curved benches that was created to foster impromptu performances. Surrounding the amphitheater are large cubes for sitting and reading. Beju's contribution to the project were the large copper statues he named Dudali which is an inversion of the name Alley Dudes which is where they used to be displayed. One of the statues is sitting in a meditation lotus position which brings Zen to the garden. Rounding out the garden is a wood pathway, stones, recycled blue glass, bamboo, tropical trees, flowers, and a fountain.
The garden is hidden from the sidewalk by a wall of bamboo but if you look closely there is an opening. It gives you the feeling of being in a secret garden. I love the feeling of serenity you get from this pocket of art and nature. The garden is in keeping with West Palm Beach's goal of creating a more walkable community. As people walk by they are encouraged to take a detour into this interesting space. Even though the garden is on the apartment property it is free and open to...
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