Burden Center welcomes you

Burden Museum and Gardens is preparing to welcome visitors in a new entrance building.

The details: Designed by EskewDumezRipple, an award-winning New Orleans firm, in collaboration with Baton Rouge’s Carbo Landscape Architecture, the structure is nearing completion ahead of a May opening.

It will include outdoor gathering space—as any proper garden venue should—and is expected to help pay its way through event rentals. LSU Ag Center oversees Burden.

Surroundings will be green. Water from the roof will be directed through a scupper on the side of the building into a detention basin, then into a rain garden, before slowly draining into Ward Creek. The parking lot will be permeable.

What it means: The significance extends beyond the building itself. The project suggests that one of the South’s loveliest public landscapes intends to attract a larger audience.