A VISION for The Cornerstone Institute

Cornerstone Sonoma is a visionary environment attracting leading landscape architects and designers from around the world to create gardens that demonstrate their ideas about the local landscape and human interaction with the land.

Set in an incomparable agricultural landscape with a long and colorful history, a 45-minute drive from San Francisco, Cornerstone Sonoma has strong connections to some of the country’s top innovators in environmental design, art, and technology.

Sonoma is home to a strong array of organizations serving the local community and addressing issues of limited resources, community building, and the creation of a sustainable future. The region has the potential to become a leader in the national dialogue about land stewardship and how gardens and growing can transform the lives of 21st-century Americans.

The Cornerstone Institute will engage experts and innovators and partner with local organizations to create a year-round program of information and ideas that use the site’s resources to spotlight issues and needs and provide guidance and new solutions. Through lectures and symposia, demonstrations and workshops, cooking lessons that begin in the garden, access to local produce and products, and a wealth of ongoing exhibitions and presentations, this community will come together and create a new whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts. The Institute’s ambitious agenda will involve current leaders in their fields, and will nurture new leadership to take on the challenges ahead.

  • What if… we were to add innovative and beautiful gardens growing food here at Cornerstone?
  • What if… local farmers and chefs could use this site as a platform for sharing their work with an audience of all ages and economic strata?
  • What if… we married the innovation and cutting-edge design sensibility of architects, landscape architects, and environmental artists from around the world with a sensitivity to this place, to demonstrate new ways of living in harmony with the landscape?
  • What if… the organizations working to assure a better future for all of us in Sonoma could have a platform here to share their goals and programs with an audience of all ages from throughout the Bay Area and beyond?

The Cornerstone Institute will embody these goals and be a leader in the local, regional and national effort to address the pressing environmental issues of our time through the lens of design.

We hope you will share our vision and help us make it a reality | For more information, please contact us: [email protected]