The Message is Resonating
Since our founding in March 1998, TCLF has reached certain milestones that demonstrate the validity of our enterprise. Consistent growth in Web traffic and TCLF conference attendance, and financial support are all demonstrable measures of success. Equally valuable is the continued commitment of TCLF Board Members, the support of partners in states and localities, and corporate sponsors.
This spring marks a new milestone, and in some senses, a new starting point. Three magazine articles this month discuss TCLF, two with a specific focus on “What’s Out There”, the first searchable, online database of America’s designed landscapes, which launched late last year following ten years of development. Also, just this month “What’s Out There” received substantial grants from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, important for both the financial support provided and the validation of our work by two estimable organizations. Finally, the American Society of Landscape Architects awarded TCLF the 2010 Communications Award of Excellence, which will be formally presented in September in Washington, D.C., at their annual conference.
The articles – in Landscape Architecture, Garden Design, and Architect magazines – are meaty, insightful, and well written. They also reach different, though somewhat overlapping audiences. A primary goal of TCLF since its inception has been to reach different interest groups, including middle school children, landscape architects, planners, government officials, architects, general interest gardeners, and the public. The intent is to create dialogue, spur debate, exchange ideas, and increase understanding. Each of these three articles does so in important ways. Landscape Architecture provides the most comprehensive examination of TCLF by a journalistic source. If anyone wants to know who we are and what we do, this is it. Garden Design, a stalwart and longtime supporter of TCLF, provides a cogent overview of “What’s Out There” that will help engage the landscape and gardening communities. The article in Architect, also about “What’s Out There”, is of particular note because it helps create a dialogue that we feel is necessary. There is a divide between architecture and landscape architecture, with the latter suffering neglect of its legacy and accomplishments and ignorance of its practitioners. The article in Architect is one tool in bridging that divide.
The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) have provided support to TCLF in the past, but their awards this year bolster “What’s Out There” in important ways. The Driehaus Foundation granted our full request of $30,000 (to assist with costs of the “What’s Out There” project manager), and it is the largest general operating grant we’ve ever received from an outside organization. The NEA consortium grant of $25,000 will fund work with the Maine Historical Society to catalogue designed landscapes in that state.
ASLA recently announced that TCLF would be honored at this year’s conference with the highest communications award – the Award of Excellence for the Foundation’s ongoing “Pioneers Oral History Series.” The series chronicles, in their spoken words, the lives and careers of landscape architects who have helped shape the American landscape. The most recently launched oral history features the late Lawrence Halprin and upcoming oral histories will feature James van Sweden, Cornelia Oberlander and Stu Dawson (illustrated top left box).
Reflecting on all this recognition, it’s clear that TCLF’s message is resonating. We’ve been aware of that for some time, but the totality of what we’ve seen in the past two months is striking and humbling. And it establishes a new benchmark … a new beginning. Now that we are bridging historic divides and opening new avenues of dialogue and debate, it’s time to be more entrepreneurial and strategic in the organization’s maturation and, more importantly, the growth of the mission – one the makes landscape architecture and its practitioners visible and valued, and engenders an ethic of stewardship.
