The Cultural Landscape Foundation Launches Oral History About Pioneering Landscape Architect Stuart O. Dawson
Media Contact: Nord Wennerstrom, Wennerstrom Communications | T: 202.255.7076 | E: nord@wennerco.com
Dawson, Whose Career Spans More Than 50 Years, Discusses Work, Philosophy & Selected Seminal Projects
Pioneers Oral History series is Winner of American Society of Landscape Architects 2010 Award of Excellence in Communications
Washington, D.C. (November 10, 2011) – On October 12, 2011, The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) launched its seventh illustrated, online Pioneers Oral History, this one focused on landscape architect Stuart O. Dawson, (http://tclf.org/pioneer/oral/history/project), a founding Principal of Sasaki Associates. A practitioner for more than fifty years, his career encompasses hundreds of projects for university campuses, museums, resorts, corporate headquarters, waterfront parks and revitalization projects, including the University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana, Illinois ; John Deere Headquarters in Moline, Illinois; Christopher Columbus Park and the Christian Science Center, Boston, Massachusetts; Charleston Waterfront, Charleston, South Carolina and Newburyport downtown and waterfront, Newburyport, Massachusetts.
In 26 separate segments totaling more than one and one half hours (taped in 2009) Dawson discusses his life, career, influences, philosophy and selected projects. Approximately 30 minutes of the oral history was premiered on Thursday, November 10, 2011 at the Sasaki Associates office in Watertown Massachusetts. The Dawson Oral History includes a downloadable transcript of the interviews featured on the Web site. Also available are reflections by friends, family, colleagues, collaborators and co-workers about Dawson’s 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, Carol Johnson, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander and James van Sweden. Collectively, these histories document and preserve the unique, first-hand perspectives of renowned landscape practitioners, and TCLF 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 illustrated, the video segments include never before seen archival footage, new photography, and on-location videography. Oral histories are currently in production about Joseph Yamada, Rich Haag and the late Robert Royston. The Pioneers Oral History series is winner of the American Society of Landscape Architects (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 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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