TCLF 2013 Year in Review
Thanks to your past and continued support, in 2013 The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) marked its fifteenth year by reaching new milestones providing greater visibility for cultural landscapes, landscape architecture and its practitioners.
Existing programs, including What’s Out There® and the Pioneers of American Landscape Design® Oral History series, offer richer and deeper resource material daily; newer programs such as Garden Dialogues have expanded considerably; our educational and advocacy efforts are impactful; the influence and outcomes of the organization’s activities are increasingly evident and measurable; Web site traffic grew 23%; and publications, conferences and media coverage helped TCLF reach a larger and more diverse audience. We are proud to report the following highlights:
(upper): What's Out There Weekend tour at Naumkeag in Stockbridge, photo
byCharles Birnbaum; (lower): What's Out There Weekend tour at Storrier
Stearns Japanese Garden in Pasadena, photo by Noel Vernon.What’s Out There® (WOT)
The free, searchable Web feature detailing the nation’s designed landscape legacy now houses more than 1,500 entries, 10,000 supporting images and 800 designer profiles. Work has begun on What’s Out There Virginia, for which we secured a National Endowment for the Arts Art Works grant, and What's Out There Texas – each will add approximately 150 sites to the database. We launched What’s Nearby, a GPS-enabled function for iPhones and similar handheld devices that shows all What’s Out There sites within a 25-mile radius of any given location. What’s Out There Weekends, now in their fourth year, drew thousands of participants in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. We also created a What's Out There Golden Gate National Parks guide and a 29-minute video for the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area - and honored its stewards, the National Park Service, The Presidio Trust and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. Full-color What's Out There guides were produced for all four events and are available through our Web site. The Weekends succeeded with support from national sponsor Bartlett Tree Experts (who have supported the program since its inception) and Coldspring, more than two-dozen other corporate and private sponsors, and many local partners and volunteers. For 2014, What's Out There Weekends are being planned for Miami, FL, Richmond, VA and Newport, RI.
(upper): the Courtyard at Casa de Miel in Palm Beach, designed
by MarioNievera, photo by Charles Birnbaum; (middle): a walk
through the landscape at Firefly in Montecito, designed by
Susan Van Atta, photo by Steven Keylon; (lower): Laurie Olin,
photo copyright OLIN, by Sahar Coston-Hardy. Garden Dialogues
Inaugurated last year, Garden Dialogues offers entertaining and insightful conversation between garden owners and their designers that reveal the objectives, factors and secrets that create distinct gardens These leisurely visits to great destinations throughout the country featured such top design professionals Lisa Gimmy, Richard Haag, Mario Nievera, Janice Parker and Edwina von Gal and grew more than 50%, from 33 gardens last year to 51 this year, with many selling out weeks in advance. The Dialogues were made possible by the continued sponsorship of Seibert & Rice and Charles Luck. We are solidifying plans now for the 2014 Garden Dialogues.
Symposiums and Conferences
These events remain vital to advancing TCLF’s mission of “stewardship through education.” This year TCLF looked at the very hot subject of urban revitalization and city shaping through a horticultural lens in Civic Horticulture. Held in Philadelphia and organized with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, it featured speakers from Belgium and throughout the U.S. and drew a very enthusiastic audience. Planning is underway for conferences in Toronto, examining landscape architecture-led urban planning, and Los Angeles, focused on Southern California’s unique Postmodernist legacy.
Pioneers of American Landscape Design® Oral History Series
An on-going series of free, online videos about significant practitioners, now includes the life and work of Joseph Yamada, who in a five-decade career shaped important landmarks in San Diego and Southern California. Filming has begun on an oral history with Nicholas Quennell of the influential New York-based firm Quennell Rothschild & Partners. Finally, in November 2013 we launched an oral history for Laurie Olin, one of the leading figures in the profession. That project was shot on location in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.
Landslide
Our annual thematic compendium of threatened and at-risk landscapes continues to be one of our most high profile and effective projects. This year we focused on the life and legacy of the great Modernist landscape architect Dan Kiley (1912-2004). The centennial of Kiley’s birth last year went uncelebrated, so to honor his legacy we created The Landscape Architecture Legacy of Dan Kiley, a traveling exhibition of newly commissioned photography that documents the current state of more than two-dozen of his surviving projects. It opened at the Boston Architectural College (November 14-December 31, 2013), and will travel to the National Building Museum in Washington, DC (February 8-May 18, 2014), with others venues to be announced. Kiley projects in the exhibition include the Miller House and Garden in Columbus, IN, widely regarded as his residential masterpiece; the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (location of the Eero Saarinen-designed Gateway arch); and Patterns, the home of Governor and Mrs. Pierre S. “Pete” du Pont IV, among others. The award-winning photographers involved all donated their time and work, and a Kickstarter campaign, which exceeded its goal by more than 20%, financed the gallery guide. None of this could have been possible without the generous support of more than 100 donors, especially the exhibition’s Presenting Sponsors, the Davey Tree Expert Company and Victor Stanley, Inc.
(upper): The garden at Patterns, photo copyright Roger Foley; (middle):
Exhibition opening at the Boston Architectural College, photo copyright Sam
Rosenholtz, courtesy Boston Architectural College; (lower): Peavey Plaza's
fountain, designed by M. Paul Friedberg, photo copyright Keri Pickett.Also in Landslide news, the Every Tree Tells a Story photographic and outdoor signboard exhibitions continue to travel. The signboard exhibit is currently on view at Louisiana State University’s Hilltop Arboretum through December 2013 following its run at Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, LA.The photography exhibition has completed its run at Thomas Stone National Historic Site in Port Tobacco, MD, and in early 2014 will open at Longue Vue House & Gardens in New Orleans. Future exhibition venues are currently being finalized.
Advocacy and Awareness
TCLF focuses on problem solving, building bridges between adversaries, and putting forward ideas and plans that guide change while insuring continuity. We also look for ways to help bring national recognition to important places and are pleased to report that three former Landslide sites – all Modernist landscapes – have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places: the Portland Chain of Open Spaces, Portland, OR (Lawrence Halprin); Gas Works Park in Seattle, WA (Richard Haag); and Minneapolis, MN’s Peavey Plaza (M. Paul Friedberg); and a fourth – Tucson Community Center, Tucson, AZ (Garrett Eckbo) – is under consideration. Additionally, on August 23, TCLF, the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis signed a settlement agreement ending litigation to prevent the demolition of Peavey Plaza. TCLF’s Board carefully analyzed the Peavey matter before making the bold decision to enter into litigation; we can now confidently say that, today, iconic Peavey Plaza would not exist without this action.
Publications
TCLF’s series with Princeton Architectural Press, Modern Landscapes: Transition and Transformation, focuses on mid-century works that have undergone marked transformation. We explore the critical question: how do we measure success? Volume One, on Lawrence Halprin’s Skyline Park in Denver, CO, debuted last year (and received an Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History), and will be followed soon by a volume on Mellon Square in Pittsburgh, PA (designed by Simonds and Simonds.)
Media Coverage in 2013 was substantial with exposure in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, National Public Radio, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and others; design media outlets Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, Architect’s Newspaper, Architect, Interior Design, Architizer, Planetizen and more; and international outlets including Monocle, World Landscape Architecture, Journal of Australian Garden History along with Huffington Post features, and extensive coverage on social media.
The Sally Boasberg Founder's Fellowship, created in the memory of founding Board Member Sally Boasberg, had as its second fellow, Karina Bishop, a 2013 graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with an MS in Historic Preservation. A New York City native, she has an undergraduate degree in Architectural History from the University of Virginia. Her writing, research, intellect and good humor were a tremendous addition to the foundation this summer.
Finally, in late August, TCLF moved to new offices in a flatiron-shaped 1920s Deco-style building overlooking Connecticut Avenue, just north of Washington, DC’s Dupont Circle. The generosity of founding Board Member Jo Ann Nathan and her husband Stuart made the office renovation possible – and the work was done on time and, most importantly, on budget.