Forbidden Gardens | Friday Mar 18, 2011
Forbidden Gardens was one of those places that I thought I would have plenty of time to visit and explore because I thought it would be around forever. But it is now closed and gone and I only had the opportunity to photograph it once.
Forbidden Gardens was an outdoor museum focused on Chinese culture and history located in the Houston suburb of Katy, TX. It was funded by businessman Ira Poon in the mid 1990s. The two main features of the museum were the 1:20 scale model of the Forbidden City and the exhibit of 6,000 one-third scale soldiers from the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin.
It really enjoyed seeing the soldiers especially because beyond them was nothing but Katy Prairie. It felt remote with the wind whistling through the trees and the soldiers stretched out in front of us. But nothing stays remote in the 4th largest city in the United States. The museum is closing because they will be expanding a highway through the area. The museum sold off the soldiers to the public and just last week I saw a guy on the side of the road selling soldiers he bought for half price. A sad end to such a unique place.
One thing I did think about while I was there was how incredibly lucky I was to have the opportunity to photograph the real soldiers when they came through town. I did a five photo series which you can see starting here.
Flickr Set: Forbidden Gardens
Tags: art chinese forbidden_gardens houston katy museum replicas texas
Galleries: Museums & Art
- Canon
- Canon EOS 50D
- F11
- 1/320 sec
- 10.0 mm
- 800
- 0
- Normal program
- Flash did not fire, auto
- -1
- Center weighted average
Posted by jim on March 21, 2011 at 03:20 PM CDT #
Posted by photine on April 02, 2011 at 08:09 PM CDT #
Posted by Keith Alan K on April 07, 2011 at 11:16 PM CDT #