From the Garden
From The Garden Lawrence Halprin and the Modern Landscape Marc Treib AN INTRODUCTION As a landscape architect, urban designer, author, and study the design of The Sea Ranch in northern Califor- proselytizer for the fi eld’s recognition, Lawrence Hal- nia—one of the fi rst planned communities to carefully prin cast a giant shadow (Figure 1). His practice, which inventory the existing vegetation, hydrology, topog- spanned half a century, was so multi-faceted that to raphy, and fauna and use these factors as the basis for date nothing written about him has satisfactorily design.2 Collectively these landscapes demonstrate that covered the broad range of his contributions. In the last Halprin’s thinking, as represented in his designs and decade, however, there has been renewed interest in his his writings, was impressively comprehensive. early attempts to record movement; others have tried Only with slight exaggeration could we say that to assess the nature of the collaboration with his wife, Halprin is generally known as a landscape architect the dancer Anna Halprin; others still have attempted who worked primarily in the urban sphere, designing to adopt his RSVP Cycles as a design method.1 Sadly, fountains and plazas—including one major memo- of late Halprin’s several major works have been threat- rial—within cities from coast to coast, and even ened, some have been demolished or bowdlerized, and abroad. Yet, as Garrett Eckbo once claimed, it is the much of the renewed interest in the Halprin landscape garden that provides the classroom and test site for has been a byproduct of eff orts to preserve major landscape architects.3 There, one learns a vocabu- projects such as Manhattan Square Park in Rochester, lary with which one designs, the processes by which Freeway Park in Seattle, and Heritage Square in Fort landscapes are realized, the people who realize them, Worth.
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