Bargmann Blowout in Philly
A perfect May evening accompanied the launch of the Pioneers Oral History with Julie Bargmann, the inaugural winner of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, during a reception at one of her masterworks, the Urban Outfitters campus in Philadelphia. Attending were dozens of her friends, colleagues, former students, and others – along with her dog Blanche (as in DuBois, her Bichon Frisé) – and her gleaming Airstream trailer with its distinctive “CRNELIA” license plate.
The event was hosted by Urban CEO Dick Hayne with whom Bargmann collaborated with for twelve years on the transformation of part of the Philadelphia Navy Yard into a vibrant corporate headquarters. Attendees included the campus’ architect Garth Rockcastle, who recommended Bargmann to Hayne and whose daughter, Maura, a principal at the Minneapolis-based landscape architecture firm Ten X Ten, was one of Bargmann’s students at the University of Virginia. The gathering had the informality and warmth of a family picnic as attendees initially clustered around the Airstream with Bargmann and Hayne – and Blanche – sipping the evening’s signature drinks, “Barney Rubble” and “Betty Rubble,” a nod to the nicknames for the reappropriated concrete and other building materials Bargmann employed at the site.
Hayne and Bargmann, and several others associated with the campus, took the group on a walking tour that included a detailed discussion of their working relationship, the opportunities and challenges they faced during the nine-year-long project, and the history of the storied navy yard. A number of former friends and colleagues were in attendance including Oberlander Prize Curator John Beardsley, Matt Urbanski (a principal at Michael Van Valkenburgh’s office, where Bargmann once worked), David Hill, and Jen Trompetter, along with TCLF Board Members Joan Shafran (who provided the lead gift to support the Oberlander Prize), Tiffany Beamer, and Liza Gilbert, all of whom brought additional good cheer and merriment.
The tour continued inside one of the campus’ cavernous buildings to a meeting room where remarks were made by TCLF’s President and CEO, Charles Birnbaum, and Dick Hayne, before a screening of excerpts from the oral history.
Following the screening guests mingled outside; the looming presence of the decommissioned aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy docked nearby was a constant reminder of the site's history.
