Paradise as a Garden

"The cold stone passageway of the City University Graduate Center Mall (33 West 42d Street) is an unlikely place for a rose garden, particularly in the dead of winter. But that's how Mary Ann Unger describes her sculptural environment of plywood brightly painted in warm spring tones, and titled ''Paradise as a Garden.''
Conceived as a ''formal baroque rose garden,'' the installation comprises a series of concentric circles built of thin, arched modules. Low, stylized ''bushes'' made of wood strips and spikes flank the symmetrical entrance paths, and taller bushes stand within. The concentric circles have the function of hedges, giving the viewer who enters the garden and stands in its center a ''contemplation'' distance from the outside space. The plan of this specially-designed installation, according to the artist, emphasizes ''the dual character'' of the Graduate Center Mall (which runs under the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, from 42d to 43d Streets), as a passageway on one hand and as a separate interior space on the other." –Grace Gleuck, New York Times, 1982