Starting today, Friday July 20 through Sunday, August 19, The Oval+ officially opens for four weeks! A portion of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway has been transformed into a grand and colorful promenade with the theme, More PARK, More PLAY.
Philadelphia-based urban design firm PORT planned and developed installations for The Oval+. This year’s installation offers a collection of playful, over-scaled urban furnishings anchoring the Oval’s midway.
This public furniture includes an 800-square-foot sandbox, a four-tiered seating platform with views of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and City Hall.
A spectacular ribbon pavilion creates fantastic patterns of sun and shadow throughout the day.
Cool down with Mr. Mister—an 800-square-foot misting pavilion that the kid in all of us will be drawn to.
Each closed intersection stretch of road is graced by a large-scale mural designed and installed by Mural Arts Philadelphia with the award-winning design and illustration studio The Heads of State. The ground mural on the Oval plus the Parkway ground murals bring a total of painted surface to 56,000 square feet.
The Barnes Foundation has set up an interactive installation called the Barnes Canopy, which was designed to appeal to Philadelphians of all ages and is super family friendly. Bring your own lunch and enjoy their weekly lunchtime live music series featuring musicians from the Philadelphia Jazz Project, every Thursday from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm.
The canopy provides outdoor seating areas, lawn games, free yoga mats to rest on, inflatable floats and toys for the little ones!
Adults can enjoy two beer gardens along the parkway, one hosted opposite the main Oval space and another inside the beautiful courtyard of the Rodin Museum.
At the Rodin’s Garden Bar enjoy beer, wine, outdoor music, and gallery access until 8 pm.
The Oval+’s activation has made the parkway more friendly to pedestrians and bicyclists.
To learn more about programming at The Oval+ throughout the summer visit theoval.org