Robson Square, Vancouver, Canada
1921 - 2021

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander

Born in Muelheim-Ruhr, Germany, Cornelia Hahn immigrated to the United States as a child with her mother and sister. She earned a diploma from Smith College in 1944 and continued her studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, graduating in 1947 with a B.L.A. As a recent graduate, Oberlander worked briefly for landscape architect James Rose. In 1950 she moved to Philadelphia to serve as a community planner for the Citizens’ Council on City Planning. She was enlisted by architect Oskar Stonorov to work on his Schuylkill Falls public housing project in 1952, with Dan Kiley serving as senior landscape architect. Oberlander went to work with Kiley in Vermont, where she also collaborated with Louis Kahn on Philadephia’s Millcreek housing project.

In 1953 Oberlander moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband H. Peter Oberlander, an architect and city planner. She established her own design firm and became known for her collaborative, socially responsible, and environmentally thoughtful work. Her most influential playground, the Children’s Creative Center at Montreal's Expo ’67, led her to assist in drafting national guidelines for children’s playgrounds. Robson Square and the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology are two of her many collaborations with architect Arthur Erickson. Oberlander has been named a Fellow of both the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) and the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). In 2013 she was awarded the ASLA Medal, the society’s highest honor, and in 2016 she received the CSLA’s highest honor as the inaugural recipient of the Governor General’s Medal in Landscape Architecture.

In 2019 Oberlander was announced as the namesake of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, which was created by The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Oberlander passed away on May 22, 2021 in Vancouver, B.C.

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander was born in Muelheim-Ruhr, Germany, in 1921. Her father died while she was still a child and her mother, a trained horticulturist, brought Cornelia and her sister to New York, later moving the family to a 200-acre farm in New Hampshire.

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Cornelia at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Cornelia at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC - Photo by Charles A. Birnbaum, 2014

Oberlander attended Smith College in the early 1940s, attracted to its interdepartmental program in architecture and landscape architecture. She was strongly influenced by faculty member Kate Ries Koch, who taught at Smith from 1919 to 1952. From Koch, Oberlander learned that landscape architecture was not just about gardens. A paper she wrote on Pierre L’Enfant’s plan for Washington, D.C., further demonstrated for her the scope of her profession and introduced her to issues of historic landscape preservation.

After gaining her diploma from Smith, Oberlander attended the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, graduating with a B.L.A. in 1947. By the time Oberlander arrived, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer were well established in the Architecture Department. Christopher Tunnard was teaching 'Modern Landscape Architecture.' The program encouraged collaboration across disciplines, which later would become an Oberlander trademark.

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Children's Creative Center Plan
Children's Creative Center Plan - Photo courtesy CCA Archives, 1967

Following her graduation from Harvard, Oberlander worked briefly for landscape architect James C. Rose. From 1949 until 1950 she was at the Regional Plan Association in New York City. By 1951, Oberlander moved to Philadelphia to serve as Community Planner for the Citizens’ Council on City Planning. Noted architect Oskar Stonorov enlisted her for his Schuylkill Falls public housing project (1952-1955), with Dan Kiley as senior landscape architect. She also worked with Kiley and architect Louis Kahn on Philadelphia’s Mill Creek Housing Project. During these years, she established and confirmed her central ethic of the social responsibility of the landscape architect; over time, she would extend this ethic to include site ecology. She did not rely on a “style” of design, but rather followed a process that allowed a unique solution for each project, from conception to installation. She learned to exert control over projects by developing careful details and specifications and actively engaging in the implementation and installation process.

In 1953 Oberlander moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband, architect and city planner H. Peter Oberlander. One of Oberlander’s early Canadian works was the landscape for the University of British Columbia faculty club (1956-1958) designed with architect Frederick Lassarre. She continued to collaborate on projects in the United States, including a playground at 18th and Bigler Streets in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia International Airport landscape, and the Cherokee Apartments landscape and site design.

Invited to participate in the Expo’67 in Montreal, she designed the Children’s Creative Center, which served 30,000 children. She eventually designed some 70 playgrounds in Canada and worked toward the establishment of a national Task Force on Play.

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Robson Square, Vancouver, Canada
Robson Square, Vancouver, Canada - Photo by Charles A. Birnbaum, 2008

Robson Square, a Provincial Government center and Courthouse complex (1974-1979) in Vancouver, was designed by architect Arthur Erickson, with whom Oberlander collaborated to create the three-block-long roof garden. Oberlander also designed the landscape of the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology (1975-1977) with Erickson, designing the landscape as an outdoor museum and specifying native vegetation based on ethnographic research.

For the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (1984-1989), with Parkin/Safdie Architects, Oberlander based her vision for the site on the painting Terre Sauvage by A. Y. Jackson, a member of the Group of Seven. She used it as a conceptual starting point from which to interpret Canada’s northern “taiga” landscape. Other seminal projects include the landscape for the Ottawa City Hall with Moshe Safdie (1989-1994) and the design of a roof garden for Library Square in Vancouver (1992-1995) with Safdie and Associates/Downs Archambault and Partners.

Working with Rolland/Towers, Oberlander created the 1995-1997 master plan of her alma mater, Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, a plan based upon work done by Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., in 1892.

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Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC - Photo by Charles A. Birnbaum, 2019

Her more recent designs include the courtyard and roof garden for the New York Times Building in New York City, with H. M. White Site Architects and Architect Renzo Piano; the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, with Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects; the landscape for the Waterfall Building in Vancouver, with Erickson and Nick Milkovich Architects; and the Jim Everett Memorial Park on University of British Columbia Endowment Lands. The American Institute of Architects cited the C.K. Choi Building-Institute for Asian Research, a project that Oberlander completed with Matsuzaki Architects at the University of British Columbia, as one North America’s best examples of environmentally responsible design.

Oberlander is considered by many to be the “Dean of Canadian Landscape Architects” and has done much to bring world-class landscape design to western Canada. For her life’s work and contributions to the profession of landscape architecture, Oberlander has been named a Fellow of both the Canadian and the American Societies of Landscape Architects and has received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of British Columbia (1991), Ryerson Polytechnic University (1999), Simon Fraser University (2002), and Smith College (2003). Oberlander served as president of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects from 1986 to 1987. In addition to her many published articles, she recently co-authored, with Elisabeth Whitelaw and Eva Matsuzaki, an Introductory Manual for Greening Roofs for Public Works and Government Services Canada.

Oberlander is an honorary member of the Architectural Institute of British Columbia. The Canadian Centre for Architecture held an exhibition Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Ecological Landscapes in 2006, which featured material from the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Archive at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and photographs by Etta Gerdes. She was included in Chatelaine Magazine's Women of the year: 30 Canadians who rocked 2015 listing. Alongside Phyllis Lambert, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel and Denise Scott Brown, she is one of four prominent female architects profiled in the 2018 documentary film City Dreamers.

In 2019 Oberlander was announced as the namesake of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, which was created by The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Oberlander passed away on May 22, 2021 in Vancouver, B.C.

Awards

1981 Fellow, Canadian Society of Landscape Architects
1990 Member of the Order of Canada
1991 Honorary law degree, University of British Columbia
1992 Fellow, American Society of Landscape Architects
1992 Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada
1995 Allied Medal, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
2001 Honorary law degree, Ryerson University
2002 Honorary law degree, Smith College
2004 Honoree of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem fundraising gala
2005 Honorary law degree, Simon Fraser University
2008 Honorary law degree, McGill University
2008 Honorary law degree, Dalhousie University
2009 Officer of the Order of Canada
2011 Awarded the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award of the International Federation of Landscape Architects
2012 Awarded the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal
2015 Margolese National Design for Living Prize
2016 Inaugural recipient of the Governor General's Medal in Landscape Architecture
2016 Member of the Order of British Columbia
2017 Companion of the Order of Canada
2017 LAF Medal of the Landscape Architecture Foundation
2021 Freedom of the City, City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
 

References

Herrington, Susan. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Landscape. 2013: University of Virginia Press. 

Leccese, Michael. “Canadian Modern,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, Vol. 79, no. 10, December 1989, pp. 64-69.

Moorehead, Steven, and Gordon Grice, eds. “Cornelia Hahn Oberlander,” Landscape Architecture. Gloucester, MA: Rockport Publishers, Inc., 1997, pp. 164-169.

Preston, Brian. “An Affinity for Natural Beauty,” Imperial Oil Review, Vol., 78, no. 413, summer 1994, pp. 18-21.