Lawrence Halprin Oral History Launched!
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) today launched its fourth illustrated, online Pioneers Oral History, this one focused on landscape architect Lawrence Halprin . Halprin, a Presidential Medal of Arts winner, designed the FDR Memorial (Washington, DC), Ghiradelli Square (San Francisco, CA), Freeway Park (Seattle, WA), Heritage Plaza (Fort Worth, TX) and numerous other masterworks. In 27 separate segments totaling more than two hours (taped 2003-2008), Halprin discusses his life, career, influences, philosophy and 67-year marriage to famed choreographer Anna Halprin.
The Halprin Oral History includes a downloadable transcript of the interviews featured on the Web site. Also available are reflections by eighteen of his friends, family, colleagues, collaborators and co-workers about Halprin’s life, career and legacy.
The series is an outgrowth of the Pioneer of American Landscape Design Project and currently includes oral histories with M. Paul Friedberg, Carol Johnson and Edward Daugherty. Collectively, these histories document and preserve the unique, first‐hand perspectives of renowned landscape practitioners, and makes them available free of charge to present and future generations of stewards, designers, researchers and others interested in the field.
“The Pioneers Oral History series is part of TCLF's overall goal of interpreting, preserving, and protecting America's designed landscape legacy through its mission of ‘stewardship through education,’” said TCLF founder and president Charles A. Birnbaum. “These oral histories foster a richer, deeper appreciation for often invisible, typically little‐known, and in some instances threatened works of landscape architecture.”
The series format spotlights the designer’s personal and professional history, their overall design philosophy and how that approach was carried out in their most emblematic projects. Richly edited, the video segments include never before seen archival footage, new photography, and on‐location videography.
Oral histories are currently in production about James van Sweden, Cornelia Oberlander, and the late Robert Royston. The Pioneers Oral History series is the recipient of a 2009 National Endowment for the Arts Design Arts grant. The American Society of Landscape Architects serves as the series official education partner. The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund provided additional support for the Halprin oral history project.
