American Philosophical Society's 'The Greenhouse Projects' project past into present

In the universe of the American Philosophical Society, a giraffe is never just a giraffe.

In the current instance, la girafe is a prime example of how 19th-century French natural historians gobbled up global flora and fauna and set a course of scientific exploration that zipped at warp speed into the future.

Which brings us to Jenny Sabin's greenhouse.

Sabin is an award-winning Philadelphia architect whose métier is digitally conceived and created designs that start with abstract concepts like "what would unraveling knots look like and how can they be mashed up (design-wise) into the idea of a mastodon skeleton like the ones scientists obsessed over in 19th-century France?"

Or, as playwright Aaron Cromie describes her work: "It's totally badass! You can quote me. Jenny Sabin is from the future."

Sabin's greenhouse is currently on view in the Jefferson Garden of the American Philosophical Society, on Fifth Street between Chestnut and Walnut. The centerpiece of the society's "Greenhouse Projects," it's a ruminative, multi-platform exploration of the question: "If Empress Josephine had been trying to create her famous hothouses in 2011, what would they look like?"

Using "Of Elephants and Roses: Encounters With French Natural History 1790-1830" - the exhibition currently in the APS museum - as a starting point, the society commissioned Sabin, Cromie, composer Kyle Bartlett (her piece, Conference of the Birds, is piped into the Greenhouse), geocaching tour guide Erin McLeary (she developed a family-friendly treasure hunt), and food podcaster Lari Robling to reinterpret "Elephant and Roses."

But it is Empress Josephine - who in the early 19th century installed black swans and nurtured rare flowers at her Malmaison estate, sending seedlings out to "enrich the soil of France" - whose presence seems to have made the leap in time most forcefully.

Sabin took Josephine Bonaparte's wood-and-glass greenhouse, plus the carrying cases scientists used to send back flower specimens, and transformed them into her glassless, heatless structure of white synthetic undulating (unraveling) ribs with 125 translucent "cold cases" attached to the sides.

Sabin, 36, says she conceives designs not on an idea she envisions but on digital theories and computerized experimentation. She creates the intellectual questions, works out the algorithms, and lets the digital architectural bricks fall where they may.