Pioneer Information
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Behnke earned a B.L.A. from Ohio State University in 1951 after serving with the United States Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1946. After graduation, he worked for several landscape architects in Cleveland, including Grier Riemer Associates and Charles Knight, before co-founding the firm Behnke, Szynyog & Ness in 1958. The firm transitioned its leadership and name to Behnke, Ness Associates in 1961 and Behnke, Ness & Litten in 1963. In 1970, Behnke left the firm to establish William A. Behnke Associates, Inc., where he worked until his retirement in 1989.
1973, Behnke taught at Kent State University as an associate professor of architecture. He also designed the Michelson-Morley Memorial Fountain (1973) on Case Western Reserve University’s campus and a curved granite garden and fountain design for the Wade W. Dauch Memorial Park in Sandusky, Ohio, which received national acclaim. In 1976, Behnke published a nationally distributed landscape planning and analysis study for Cleveland Parks and Recreation that proposed new public policy and management strategies for Cleveland’s urban parks. In 1979 Behnke Associates, Inc., prepared a master plan for the city’s Rockefeller Park, which included recommendations to rehabilitate the lagoon and the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.
Behnke held leadership roles in several landscape architecture organizations, including serving as President of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) from 1980 to 1981 and President of the Landscape Architecture Foundation in 1983. He was named a Fellow of the ASLA in 1975. Behnke died in 2020 in Willoughby, Ohio.
