Janice Parker
Since creating Janice Parker Landscape Architects in 1984, Ms. Parker has cultivated the firm to become one of national prominence. Under her guidance, Janice Parker Landscape Architects has been honored with multiple awards, including the 2018 and 2016 Stanford White Award for Garden Design; the 2019 and 2015 Professional Merit Award from the Connecticut chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects; and the 2017 New England Design Hall of Fame Award. She was involved in the formation of New York City’s Million Trees project, and she designed the Cherry Tree Project for the Harlem River Esplanade. In 2019 she became a member of the Board of Trustees for Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project. Ms. Parker’s firm’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Metropolitan Home, Interior Design, Vogue, and Luxe Interiors + Design. She has conceptualized and directed innovative landscape architecture for national and international private and public clients. Her firm’s reputation is one of thoughtful and unique landscapes, with a dedication to the natural environment and excellence in design. Her notable career has embodied the essence of mentoring, teaching, and volunteering. Ms. Parker currently serves on The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s Stewardship Council.
Statement: I was motivated to support the Oberlander Prize by the chance to celebrate the role of women in the formation of landscape architecture as a profession in America. The respect I have for the women who did this work in the early days is enormous. It has given my professional and personal life more purpose, and it is a huge pleasure and honor to be able to study what they did, to learn more about them, and to understand them. I know one thing for sure: they were innovators, groundbreakers, rule breakers, and entrepreneurs. Thank heaven for them.
I take true inspiration from the long line of creative and hardworking women landscape architects. Cornelia is an inspiration and a role model. There is a quote by Mary Bronson Hartt about women who entered the demanding and difficult profession of landscape architecture in the early twentieth century: “Not for one instant will all this daunt a woman to whom landscape design is a master passion…She exults in the demands upon every power of mind and body. In other words, she is an artist, and, in so far as her art is concerned, a willful fanatic” (from Women and the Art of Landscape Gardening, 1908). I love that quotation. Cornelia is a descendant of these women, and all of us who practice—female and male alike—are as well.