“In honor of Earth Day 2026, join us for an evening conversation and film screening celebrating the new book All the Queens Gardens: Everyday Landscaping in New York's Largest and Most Diverse Borough by architect and artist Rafael Herrin-Ferri.
For the special occasion, we will play an accompanying short film by Sean Mowry which captures the story of Herrin-Ferri's work documenting the surprising beauty of New York City's largest borough. It's a personal story and a larger history about why Queens looks so strange and spectacular.
More about the book:
In his second book exploring the urban vernacular of Queens, New York, Rafael Herrin-Ferri shifts his focus to the green spaces that accompany the houses and small multi-family buildings of the "World's Borough." As varied and colorful as the façades featured in All the Queens Houses (JOVIS, 2021), these spaces introduce an organic, botanical element to the streetscape. Semi-formal lawns in the French and Italian traditions sit cheek by jowl with the improvised arbors of Chinese vegetable gardens, Caribbean-inspired flower gardens, brightly colored Hindu courtyards, elaborate hand-crafted water features, life-size replicas of fauna, and countless other displays of idiosyncrasy and cultural diversity.
Through its photographs and text, this book paints another portrait--softer and greener this time--of the dynamic and multicultural landscape that is Queens.
See you there!”