The new Grace Farms cultural centre in Connecticut raises uncomfortable questions about the role of corporate money in public projects
The SANAA-designed Grace Farms, a sprawling community centre set in the rolling hills of upmarket New Canaan, Connecticut, joins a growing number of public amenities in the United States that are bankrolled by private money, in part or full.1 Billed as a ‘gift’ to the public, the project is run and paid for by the Grace Farms Foundation, a tax-exempt, non-profit organisation with an ambitious if murky social mission, including “initiatives in the areas of nature, arts, justice, community, and faith.”2 Its patrons hail from the world of Wall Street. Robert Prince, one of its founding members, is the co-chief investment officer of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, known popularly for its cult-like management culture and for predicting the 2008 financial crisis. The project was reimagined as a community centre and non-profit organisation in 2009, following community opposition to the group’s initial plans for the construction of a 1,200-seat church sanctuary.
"Much as ‘radical transparency’ is demanded from senior management at Bridgewater, the openness of Grace Farms to its community feels forced, its agenda delegated from above. When I visited this winter, the library contained an assortment of suggested reading, a series of social justice greatest hits for anxious Northeast liberals to get up to speed on: Bell Hooks, postcolonialism and so on. Next to a series of flyers about the foundation’s involvement with advocacy against sexual slavery and other social justice causes, a series of tablet computers invited browsing. The screen backgrounds seemed fitting: four executives in suits, sitting in front of a wall of glass, in front of which hovered a series of browsing options dedicated to the theme of ‘justice’. It is a classic image of liberal justice: something debated on behalf of those who require it, its protagonists nowhere to be found."