 "Photo: Andrew Brant")
Although it will not be the only medieval garden in the country, "It would be the only medieval garden green roof in North America," said Theresa Gross-Diaz, Ph.D., co-director of Loyola's Medieval Studies Program.
In December 2006, while looking out at Lake Michigan from the fifth floor of Crown Center, Gross-Diaz noticed that the big black roof over Crown Center Auditorium was "completely blocking the view."
That is when she decided that there should be a garden on the roof.
"I'm an avid amateur gardener," Gross-Diaz said. Her specialty in medieval history led to the birth of a class the following spring to draw up plans for a medieval garden on the roof of Crown. She "roped in" a handful of medieval studies students and laid groundwork for the garden's plans, such as design and the plants themselves.
"We have preliminary drawings done," said senior John Mocek, who is involved in the garden's planning.
While the project has been put on hold for this fall, the major stumbling block for the rooftop garden is money.
"[The garden construction and planting] depends when the university gives us funding," Gross-Diaz said. "We don't have any contracts yet."
While Loyola has not officially approved the budget for a medieval garden, Gross-Diaz will attempt to contact various local sources for funding in addition to the City of Chicago's green initiative.
"Of course Loyola wants to be as green as possible," Gross-Diaz said.
This would not be Loyola's first green roof. Philip Kosiba, vice president of facilities at Loyola, listed a number of green roofs, including the Quinlan Life Sciences Building and Baumhart Hall, as well as plans for a green roof on top of the new Information Commons and on one or more levels of Mundelein Center.
The contents of the medieval garden will not be modeled after a specific area or try to reproduce specific gardens from the middle ages, Gross-Diaz said. Instead, it will meld a variety of influences and styles. According Mocek, the garden will incorporate a wide sampling of medieval nations, including Italy, Moorish Spain and Arab nations, as well as Northern European countries.
"We didn't want to narrow the appeal of the garden," Gross-Diaz said.
"Everyone loved gardens in the Middle Ages," Mocek said, citing the gardens of Medieval Spain, a Muslim nation at the time. "We didn't want to be exclusive."
Chicago weather, however, has put some restrictions on the plant life.
"We're really limited to England and Northern France," Mocek said, "because of Chicago's climate."
In addition, the garden will have to substitute certain plants with North American varieties due to limited availability of specific greenery. Thus far, the plans for the garden include some herbs, roses ("Roses play a very big role [in Medieval Europe]," Gross-Diaz said), lilies, grapes, apples, pears, pomegranates, small bushes and shrubs, among other vegetation, Mocek said. In addition, "We really want to have a water feature," Gross-Diaz said.
Last spring, the facilities department performed an engineering test on the roof over Crown Center Auditorium to see what the roof could hold and if the medieval garden would fit inside those parameters. While the test showed that the roof can support some weight, "There are parts of the roof we can't use," Mocek said.
Kosiba voiced reservations about putting the garden on the roof over Crown Center Auditorium, citing that the roof was not designed to hold any more than the weight of snow in the winter. Typically, rooftop gardens and green roofs have some kind of concrete roof to work with, Kosiba said, but Crown Center is a lightweight construction of metal and roofing materials.
However, Kosiba listed a number of locations in the campus redesign (a project due for completion in 2012) that could easily accommodate a medieval garden, such as one of the four tiered roofs of Mundelein Center.
If no rooftop plans work out, there are a number of locations at ground level, such as the area currently occupied by Halas Field, Kosiba said.
"I hope it happens soon," Gross-Diaz said. It would be a great way to "bring the middle ages into the 21 century." Gross-Diaz, however, hesitates to say too much without the official green light. "All we need to do is find the money."
Be the first to comment on this article!