Beth K. Meyer
Beth Meyer, FASLA, is the Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, where she is the co-director of the Center for Cultural Landscapes. She is a landscape architect, critic, and theorist whose writing has influenced landscape architectural design theory and practice nationally and internationally. Ms. Meyer has received numerous awards, including the Jot Carpenter Teaching Medal from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Vincent Scully Prize from the National Building Museum. At the University of Virginia, she has served in several leadership positions, including the chair of the Landscape Architecture Department and the dean of the School of Architecture, as well as the University Faculty Senate Executive Committee. She currently serves on several national boards, including the Senior Fellows of Garden and Landscape Studies at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C. and was a Commissioner on and Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (2011-2019).
Statement: Cornelia Hahn Oberlander has inspired me to be unbounded in my passion and ambition for the landscape as a medium and agent of new socio-ecological imaginaries. This influence has been primarily indirect, as I have never lived near or worked with Cornelia. Yet, on the half-dozen occasions that I’ve spent time with her at lectures, conferences, and professional social gatherings, Cornelia made it clear she knew who I was, what I was doing, what I was capable of doing, and how much it mattered that I aspire to even more for our field. Her care and attention were motivating and a bit unnerving! I know she has done the same thing for other men and women in landscape architecture. We are all in her debt for her professional accomplishments, her built legacy, and her model of what it means to be human…she is a great colleague and a mentor. The Oberlander Prize will extend Cornelia’s legacy into the future, associating it with the very best landscape architects in each generation. How could I not support this?!