Suzanne Turner
Suzanne “Susan” Turner, FASLA, is interested in place-making and has devoted much of her energy and effort to raising public awareness in her local Louisiana community about the value of cultural and vernacular places—the stories that explain their meanings, their value for the future, and their ability to “ground” a community in time and place. She has been instrumental in the revitalization of downtown Baton Rouge as a residential community, and she takes pride in having founded the Red Stick Farmers Market, along with a brilliant graduate student, 23 years ago.
Ms. Turner is professor emeritus of the School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University, where for 27 years she taught design and history and directed the graduate program. She is currently principal of Suzanne Turner Associates, a firm specializing in cultural resource documentation, community planning, and landscape design. Her early projects include Hermann-Grima House, Shadows-on-the-Teche, and Bayou Bend Gardens. She has been fortunate to be able to collaborate on several projects led by colleagues, including Drayton Hall and Dix Park with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates; Cheekwood and Brackenridge Park with Reed-Hilderbrand; and Olana New York State Park and Memorial Park Houston with Nelson-Byrd-Woltz. Her firm’s recent work includes the documentation and preservation planning for the two properties of the Historic Charleston Foundation, the Aiken-Rhett House and the Nathaniel Russell House. Ms. Turner has coauthored several books and has written many book chapters and articles. Her most significant work is the transcription and annotation of The Garden Diary of Martha Turnbull, published in 2012.
Statement: I have been blessed to spend time with Cornelia thanks to The Cultural Landscape Foundation and Charles Birnbaum, who has included her in many of our field trips and symposia. Cornelia’s amazing life and work have helped me reflect upon the home that the profession of landscape architecture has been for me. Landscape architecture is both a profession and a passion, and Cornelia is the consummate example of someone whose life and body of work merge and blur the boundaries of the two. Her personality and charisma represent the fact that we are at our best as a profession when we work as a collaborative community, with each other and with other design professions.