Lawrence Halprin (July 1, 1916 – October 25, 2009) was an American landscape architect, designer, and teacher.
Beginning his career in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, in 1949, Halprin often collaborated with a local circle of modernist architects on relatively modest projects. These figures included William Wurster, Joseph Esherick, Vernon DeMars, Mario J. Ciampi, and others associated with UC Berkeley. Gradually accumulating a regional reputation in the northwest, Halprin first came to national attention with his work at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, the Ghirardelli Square adaptive-reuse project in San Francisco, and the landmark pedestrian street / transit mall Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis. Halprin's career proved influential to an entire generation in his specific design solutions, his emphasis on user experience to develop those solutions, and his collaborative design process.
Halprin's point of view and practice are summarized in his definition of modernism:
In his best work, he construed landscape architecture as narrative.
Early and personal life
Halprin was born on July 1, 1916 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Zionist leader Rose Halprin and Samuel W. Halprin, where he also grew up. Being Jewish, after finishing Poly Prep at 16, he went to Israel on a kibbutz for three years near what is today the Israeli port city of Haifa.
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1939 at Cornell University, studying horticulture with Professor Lee Gand; While at Wisconsin, his wife Anna convinced Halprin to visit Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's studio in Wisconsin, which in turn sparked Halprin's initial interest in architecture; Although Tunnard was teaching at Harvard, he never took a course from him. His Harvard classmates included Catherine Bauer, Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei, and William Wurster. They have two daughters: Daria Halprin, an American psychologist, author, dancer, and actress, and Rana Halprin, a photographer and activist for Romani and human rights. His first commission was for Anna's parents, who had recently moved from Chicago; that project was a collaboration with Wurster (Schuman House, Woodside), who was responsible for the house's architecture. followed by the Heritage Park Plaza in Fort Worth, Texas, designed by Hrlprin and built in 1980, featured by NRHP as its featured listing of the week, on May 21, 2010.
From 1984 to 2002, Halprin designed and created the Armon Hanatziv Promenade in Jerusalem. He also designed several other notable buildings in Jerusalem including the Israel Museum and the Hadassah Medical Center.
Halprin's final three projects were all completed in 2005: the Letterman Digital Arts Center (for George Lucas), the approach to Yosemite Falls, and the amphitheatre at Stern Grove.
Several of Halprin's works have been threatened by redevelopment as they have aged. Some, such as the Water Garden in Olympia, Washington, have fallen victim to neglect and deferred maintenance, and are in states of disrepair. Others have attracted undesired users (homeless, drug users, and skateboarders); Critics argue his pieces have become dated and no longer reflect the direction their cities want to take. Budgetary constraints and the urge to "revitalize" threaten some of his projects. In response foundations have been set up to improve care for some of the sites and to try to preserve them in their original state. Prior to its destruction, Skyline Park was documented as Colorado's first Historic American Landscapes Survey project.
Anna and Lawrence Halprin co-created the "RSVP Cycles", a creative methodology that can be applied broadly across all disciplines.
Projects
Halprin's range of projects demonstrates his vision of the garden or open space as a stage.
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! Washington Water Power
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| Spokane || WA || 1959
| style="text-align:left;" | Campus
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! West Coast Memorial to the Missing of World War II
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| San Francisco || CA || 1960
| style="text-align:left;" | Landscaping plan, located at the Presidio
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! 1962 Seattle World's Fair
| 125px
| Seattle || WA || 1962
| style="text-align:left;" | Master landscaping plan
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! Sproul Plaza
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| Berkeley || CA || 1962
| style="text-align:left;" | At the University of California, Berkeley
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! Saint Francis Square
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| San Francisco || CA || 1964
| style="text-align:left;" | Cooperative housing project; design based on a pedestrian-oriented site plan, with three-story apartment buildings facing onto three landscaped interior courtyards
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! Sea Ranch, California
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| Sea Ranch || CA || 1964
| style="text-align:left;" | Master landscape plan; this is a historically significant planned community collaboration with developer Al Boeke and architects Joseph Esherick, Charles Willard Moore and others,
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! Ghirardelli Square
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| San Francisco || CA || 1965
| style="text-align:left;" | An early model for adaptive reuse of historic buildings.
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! Oakbrook Center
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| Oak Brook || IL || 1966
| style="text-align:left;" | Landscape work
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! Innerbelt Freeway
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| Akron || OH || 1966
| style="text-align:left;" | Plan proposed for a park atop the freeway in 1966.
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! Northwest Plaza
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| St. Louis || MO || 1968
| style="text-align:left;" | Exterior landscaping and 'horsehead' fountain scheme.
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! Nicollet Mall
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| Minneapolis || MN || 1968
| style="text-align:left;" | One of the nation's first transitways
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! Cascade Plaza
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| Akron || OH || 1969
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! Park Central Square
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| Springfield || MO || 1970
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! Ira Keller Fountain and Lovejoy Fountain Park
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| Portland || OR || 1971
| style="text-align:left;" | Part of a multi-block sequence of public fountains and outdoor rooms in Portland,
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! Skyline Park
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| Denver || CO || 1974
| style="text-align:left;" | Inspired by Colorado National Monument; largely destroyed following 2003 redesign.
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! United Nations Plaza
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| San Francisco || CA || 1975
| style="text-align:left;" | Part of the Civic Center complex.
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! Sculpture Garden at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
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| Richmond || VA || 1975
| style="text-align:left;" | Demolished in 2006.
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! Manhattan Square Park
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| Rochester || NY || 1975
| style="text-align:left;" | urban park with waterfalls, playground and skating rink
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! Riverbank Park
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| Flint || MI || 1975
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! Freeway Park
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| Seattle || WA || 1976
| style="text-align:left;" | Innovative reclaiming of interstate right-of-way for park space
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! Plaza 8 Water Feature
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| Sheboygan || WI || 1976
| style="text-align:left;" | Adjacent to the Mead Public Library, 8th Street
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! Downtown Mall
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| Charlottesville || VA || 1976
| style="text-align:left;" | 8-9 block pedestrian only zone along the city's historic main street
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! Main Street
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| Greenville || SC || 1979
| style="text-align:left;" | Redesigned in 2008.
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! Heritage Park Plaza
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| Fort Worth || TX || 1980
| style="text-align:left;" |
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! Levi's Plaza
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| San Francisco || CA || 1982
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!Library Steps
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| Los Angeles || CA || 1989
| style="text-align:left;" | Public art and architectural installation of a 20-foot wide double stairway flanking a river rock "stream" that cascades down to a fountain with concrete seating. Halprin incorporated Robert Graham's Source Figure sculpture and pool as the symbolic "source" of his Library Steps which terminate at the Los Angeles Public Library entrance. Commonly known as the Bunker Hill Steps.
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! Grand Hope Park
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| Los Angeles || CA || 1993
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! Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
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| colspan=2 | Washington, D.C. || 1997
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! Letterman Digital Arts Center
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| San Francisco || CA || 2005
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References
Bibliography
- Helphand, Kenneth I. Lawrence Halprin. 2017. Amherst, MA: Library of American Landscape History, and Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press.
External links
- The Telegraph: Lawrence Halprin obituary
- National Park Service article
- Illustrated appreciation of Ira Keller Fountain in Portland Oregon
- Washington Post profile of Halprin on the dedication of the FDR Memorial
- Library of American Landscape History: Lawrence Halprin by Kenneth I. Helphand.