Raymond Farm Center for Living Arts & Design to hold First Annual Fall Fundraiser -- 2017 Fall Soirée

On Saturday, October 7, The Raymond Farm Center for Living Arts & Design will hold its first annual fundraiser -- The 2017 Raymond Farm Center Fall Soirée. The benefit event will be held jointly indoors at the Raymond Farm and on the home’s tented patio overlooking the farm’s pond and wooded vista. The event will celebrate the legacy of Antonin and Noémi Raymond by offering attendees the opportunity to participate in a VIP tour, and a celebration that will include Asian-fusion cuisine catered by Chadd Jenkins (formerly of Little Fish in Philadelphia), Japanese tea, handcrafted cocktails, live French Jazz by the Hot Club of Philadelphia, and a silent auction that will include exclusive art, collectibles and museum experiences.

The benefit event will be held at the former home of Antonin and Noémi Raymond, an 18th Century, Bucks County farm house, in New Hope, PA. The Raymonds are world renown for their international careers, which spanned the 1910s through the 1970s, and included notable architecture as well as the design of furniture, lighting, textile, ceramics, flatware and ironwork. Between the Raymonds’ homes and offices in Japan and New York, they established one of the most avant-garde design studios in the world.

Antonin Raymond’s rich history includes serving as a diplomat, work as an architect under Frank Lloyd Wright, having a lifelong friendship with former colleague George Nakashima, and being commissioned to design the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and the Catholic-based Nanzan University in Nagoya, as well as other notable buildings. Eventually becoming known in Japan as “the Father of Modern Architecture."

In 1937, with war looming in Japan and Europe, the Raymonds established residency at their summer studio/home, “the New Hope Experiment.” The Raymond Farm served as their live/work atelier and offered teachings in practical design solutions. Today, the Raymond Farm Center strives to provide similar offerings by supporting community arts programming, an artist in residency program, and an opportunity for residents and visitors to experience Bucks County in the Raymonds’ former home and studios.

The silent auction will include an item by Nakashima Woodworkers, a limited edition reproduction of Noémi Raymond’s milk stool, original pieces by the Raymond Farm Center’s first artist in residence, Miriam Carpenter, a curator-guided tour of the MoMA in NYC, Japanese studio pottery, baskets of produce, preserves, and baked goods from the Raymond Farm, in addition to signed copies of books on Frank Lloyd Wright and the renowned architects who worked for Wright and rose to fame for their own contributions to Modern Architecture.

The fundraiser comes on the heels of the Raymond Farm Center being honored as the premier barn of the Bucks County Audubon Society’s Annual Art of the Barn Tour and Art Show, and hosting the AIA Custom Residential Architecture Network’s symposium, “After Wright: Pathfinders of Regionalism and Sustainability -- Rudolf Schindler, Richard Neutra and Antonin & Noemi Raymond.”

Members of the public are encouraged to attend. Tickets are priced at $75 per ticket in advance and $85 per ticket at the door. Discounted tickets at $30 each are available for students with identification. For more information and to purchase tickets visit: raymondfarmcenter.eventbrite.com.