"All the Queens Gardens" Photo Talk with Photographer Rafael Herrin-Ferri

Talk Highlights:

• See highlights from Rafael Herrin-Ferri's newest photography book, All the Queens Gardens: Everyday Landscaping in New York’s Largest and Most Diverse Borough, which features over 150 gardens and front yards across the borough
• Explore how the cultural diversity of Queens is expressed through urban greenery
• Gain behind-the-scenes insight from the photographer
• Ask questions during a live Q&A

About All the Queens Gardens:

In his second book exploring the urban vernacular of Queens, Rafael Herrin-Ferri shifts his focus to the green spaces that accompany the houses and small multi-family buildings of the "World’s Borough." As varied and colorful as the façades featured in All the Queens Houses, these spaces introduce an organic, botanical element to the streetscape.

Semi-formal lawns in the French and Italian traditions sit cheek by jowl with the improvised arbors of Chinese vegetable gardens, Caribbean-inspired flower gardens, brightly colored Hindu courtyards, elaborate handcrafted water features, life- size replicas of fauna, and countless other displays of idiosyncrasy and cultural diversity. Through its photographs and text, this book paints another portrait—softer and greener this time—of the dynamic and multicultural landscape that is Queens, New York.

About Rafael Herrin-Ferri:

Rafael Herrin-Ferri was born in Barcelona to Spanish and American parents in 1972. He was raised in Ithaca, NY, from the age of 7 with intermittent schooling in Valencia and Seville. He attended the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University, graduating in 1996.

After working at several architectural firms in San Francisco and Barcelona, including an internship with Enric Miralles Benedetta Tagliabue (EMBT), he returned to New York City in 2003. He has continued to work as a professional architect in various award-winning studios based in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

In 2013, he began to study the various facets of the Queens urban vernacular via photography. In 2017, he exhibited a large selection of his photographs at The Architectural League of New York. Four years later, he published his first book: All the Queens Houses: An Architectural Portrait of New York’s Largest and Most Diverse Borough (Jovis, 2021), to critical acclaim. After another four years, the companion book, All the Queens Gardens: Everyday Landscaping in New York’s Largest and Most Diverse Borough (Jovis, 2025) was published. Also in 2025, a short documentary titled All the Queens Houses, by Sean Mowry, premiered at the DOC NYC film festival. Rafael lives in the multicultural capital of Queens (Jackson Heights), with his wife, daughter, and Boston Terrier.