Martin Puryear's Pavilion in the Trees is an amenity located near the Horticulture Center in West Fairmount Park. The original model, developed as part of the Fairmount Park Art Association's Form and Function program, included a steep set of stairs, but the artist decided to substitute a sloping ramp for aesthetic and safety reasons.

Puryear—whose retrospective exhibition was shown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1992—worked with architect Samuel Harris at the time with the firm Kieran Timberlake and Harris to realize the project, which was supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Inspired by the universal childhood longing for a tree house, Pavilion consists of an open structure supported by a series of posts. All of the materials—western red cedar, heart white oak, heart redwood—were selected for their natural durability. A sixty-foot walkway leads across a natural basin to an observation platform—a square deck covered by a latticed canopy—that rises twenty-four feet above the ground. Situated high among the treetops, the work has become a much-favored place to relax and contemplate nature from a bird's-eye view.

Directions by Car: Exit Rt. 76 at Montgomery Drive and continue west toward Belmont Avenue. Turn left at entrance to the Horticulture Center/Japanese House and Garden. Pavilion in the Trees is in the Lansdowne Glen, behind the Horticulture Center.