At North 22nd and the Parkway is Maja Park. This summer, join the Parkway Council for Music with Maja jazz concerts, and explore the Association for Public Art’s third annual Art on the Parkway installation.
Programs in Maja Park
Music with Maja
Music with Maja jazz concerts return to Maja Park Tuesdays this summer. Each week a different featured soloist will join the Vibe-A-Delphia jazz trio. Be sure to bring your own blanket or chair, a picnic, and enjoy summer evenings on the Parkway.
Free and open to all — no registration needed
All concerts are from 6:30–8:00 p.m.
Maja Park, North 22nd Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway
All concerts are weather permitting. Be sure to check the Parkway Council's Instagram for any weather-related cancellations or other announcements.
Music with Maja is organized by the Parkway Council and is made possible, in part, thanks to support from the American Federation of Musicians, Local 77-274; Creative Philadelphia; and Philadelphia Parks and Recreation.
Art on the Parkway: Franklin Thread
“At present, we are like the separate filaments of flax before thread is formed, without strength because without connection” -Benjamin Franklin, 1747
Franklin Thread is a new temporary public artwork by Philadelphia-based architect and educator, Jeff Richards. The project can be viewed from July through October, 2026. Franklin Thread is the selected proposal for the third year of Art on the Parkway, a juried open call organized by the Association for Public Art, in partnership with the Parkway Council and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation.
About Franklin Thread
Franklin Thread is a living, actively growing installation that explores and envisions how organic materials and industrial byproducts might be used to build a more sustainable future. The project involves the act of growing, harvesting, and retting flax, accompanied by a sculptural wall made out of a flax-based biogenic building material called “flaxcrete.” Richards recently developed flaxcrete with his students through his work as a professor at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, where he teaches courses in architectural design, environmental systems, and ecological design. Richards is also founder and principal of the research-based architecture and design office RAD.
The installation is a journey through three distinct sections of a nearly 375-foot-long “thread” representing the different phases of flaxcrete production: growing of flax, the retting process, and the formation of flax byproduct into biogenic building blocks. Flax was an essential part of the agricultural-based economy of Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia, but its use in North America has since largely disappeared. The growth of flax can be understood as a catalyst: it offers a new way of thinking about building in this masonry-centric city; its fiber can be used to manufacture textiles, as it was in Philadelphia pre-World War II; its seeds are food, offering many health benefits; it can remediate the toxins and pollutants of brownfield sites; and it supports pollinators during its growth.
Check back later this summer for information on related programs.
Learn more about the project and the Art on the Parkway program here.
Art on the Parkway is organized by the Association for Public Art, in partnership with the Parkway Council and Philadelphia Parks Recreation.
Support for the project is provided, in part, by AIR Communities/Park Towne Place, Prudent Management Associates, and Creative Philadelphia.
