Modern Landscapes

Lawrence Halprin
Endangered!

Photograph by Mark Burrell

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Sculpture Garden, Richmond, Virginia Nationwide our modern built landscapes are in danger. The designs of Lawrence Halprin, a leader in landscape architecture for decades, are particularly vulnerable at this time. His 1973 Skyline Park in downtown Denver was recently removed. Thorough documentation of the site --undertaken by Historic Denver, Inc., with the help of an emergency grant -- mitigated the loss of this structure. Halprin recently received the National Endowment for the Arts gold medal from the President Bush. Despite this national recognition for design excellence, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts included demolition of Halprin's sculpture garden in its $100-million building expansion plan designed by London-based architect Rick Mather. The Virginia Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects needs your support to save, or at the very least document, the Halprin sculpture garden design in Richmond, Virginia. More information on the RPPN Halprin Landscapes page.

Preserving the Modern Landscape, The Cultural Landscape Foundation. "In the landscape of our cities, many important designed improvements, built since WW2, are beginning to come under attack by civic agencies and developers. The best pieces of landscape art and design are important not just as contemporary places to live in but as part of our history and culture. We travel to iconic places all over the globe and use them as touchstones for our culture and our memories. The difficult question is not whether we should protect and preserve the best of these designs, but which ones are the best. What is worth preserving and why! Not everything from the immediate past is worthy of preservation. How do we decide which works deserve to be preserved in our cultural landscape?"

Also on the CLF website - A Halprin is Saved: Portland, Oregon's restoration plan. "The long-term goal of the project, beyond the Tree Rejuvenation Pilot Project, is to create a Conservancy-type organization to maintain, enhance and build appreciation for the Halprin Landscapes."

Downtown landscape will lose '70s-era Skyline Park, by Mary Voelz Chandler, 17 May 2003, Rocky Mountain News

Preserving modern landscape architecture : Papers from the Wave Hill / National Park Service Conference. United States. National Park Service. 1999.