The Cultural Landscape Foundation Launches Oral History About Pioneering Landscape Architect James van Sweden

Media Contact: Nord Wennerstrom, Wennerstrom Communications | T: 202.255.7076 | E: nord@wennerco.com

Van Sweden Discusses Career, Philosophy & Creation of the New American Garden; Pioneers Oral History series is Winner of ASLA 2010 Award of Excellence - Communications

Washington, D.C. (September 3, 2010) – On September 10, 2010, The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) will launch its fifth illustrated, online Pioneers Oral History, this one focused on landscape architect James van Sweden (http://tclf.org/pioneer/oral-history-project). van Sweden, recipient of the 2010 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Design Medal, together with business partner Wolfgang Oehme, designed the Federal Reserve Board Garden (Washington, D.C.), the New American Friendship Garden at the National Arboretum (Washington, D.C.), and Nelson A. Rockefeller Park (New York, NY) as well as hundreds of residential gardens across the country. In 25 separate segments totaling more than one and one half hours (taped 2009-2010), van Sweden discusses his life, career, influences, philosophy and the creation of the New American Garden. Approximately 30 minutes of the oral history will be premiered Friday, September 10 at the Letelier Theater in Washington, D.C., followed by a discussion with van Sweden (ticketed event, reservations required: http://tclf.org/event/moveable-feast).

The van Sweden Oral History includes a downloadable transcript of the interviews featured on the Web site. Also available are reflections by 18 of his friends, family, colleagues, collaborators and co-workers about van Sweden’s life, career and legacy.

The series is an outgrowth of the Pioneer of American Landscape Design Project and currently includes oral histories with Edward Daugherty, M. Paul Friedberg, Lawrence Halprin, and Carol Johnson. 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 Cornelia Oberlander, Stu Dawson and the late Robert Royston. The Pioneers Oral History series is winner of the ASLA 2010 Award of Excellence (Communications Category) and the recipient of a 2009 National Endowment for the Arts Design Arts grant. ASLA serves as the series official education partner.

About The Cultural Landscape Foundation
The 12-year old Cultural Landscape Foundation (www.tclf.org) provides people with the ability to see, understand, and value landscape architecture and its practitioners, in the way many people have learned to do with buildings and their designers. Through its Web site, lectures, outreach, and publishing, TCLF broadens the support and understanding for cultural landscapes nationwide to help safeguard our priceless landscape heritage for future generations.

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