Lawrence Halprin - Awards, Publications

Landscape architect and writer, born in New York City, New York, USA. A disciple of Thomas Church, he founded his West Coast firm in 1949. He focused on people's ‘spatial experience’ of open areas, and redesigned urban spaces such as Ghiradelli Square in San Francisco to attract pedestrians, using multiple levels and fountains.

Following an apprenticeship with landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church, collaborating with Church on the seminal Dewey Donnell Garden (El Novillero) in Sonoma County California and helping to develop the contemporary California Style garden concept, Halprin opened his own office in 1949.

Halprin's wife, accomplished avant-grade dancer Anna Halprin, is a long-time collaborator, with whom he has explored the common areas between choreography and the way users move through a public space. Halprin was the creative force behind the interactive, 'playable' civic fountains most common in the 1970's, an amenity which continues to greatly contribute to the pedestrian social experience in Portland Oregon, where "Ira's Fountain" is loved and well-used, and which has been a chronic failure at the transient-ridden United Nations Plaza in San Francisco. One of the nation's first transitways Yosemite Falls,Yosemite National Park, visitor attractions constructed and dedicated in 2005 The Sea Ranch,California,historically significant collaboration with architect Charles Willard Moore The Ira Keller Fountain (Ira's Fountain), with Lovejoy Plaza Fountain, part of a multi-block sequence of public fountains and outdoor rooms in Portland, Oregon Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, California, an early model for adaptive reuse of historic buildings the FDR Memorial in Washington DC United Nations Plaza in San Francisco, California Levi Plaza in San Francisco, California Cascade Plaza in Akron, Ohio Main Street Streetscape in Greenville, South Carolina Innerbelt Freeway in Akron, Ohio landscape work for Oakbrook Plaza in Oakbrook, Illinois, exterior landscaping and 'horsehead' fountain scheme for Northwest Plaza in St. Louis, Missouri, among many other post-war suburban shopping plazas Jacob Riis Plaza in New York City Seattle Freeway Park in Seattle, Washington, an innovative reclaiming of interstate right-of-way for park space the new approach plan at Yosemite Falls at Yosemite National Park in California Skyline Park in Denver, Colorado - inspired by Colorado National Monument Letterman Digital Arts Center, San Francisco, California

Awards

1964 AIA Medal for Allied professionals 1969 Elected fellow in the ASLA 1970 Elected honorary fellow of the Institute of Interior Design 1979 Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture 1979 Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement awarded by the AIA 2002 National Medal of Arts by The President of the United States 2002 Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell Golden Ring 2003 ASLA Design Medal 2005 Michaelangelo Award

Publications

The Sea Ranch: Diary of an Idea2003 The FDR Memorial: Designed by Lawrence Halprin1998 The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial1997 "Design as a Value System", Places: Vol. 11989 Lawrence Halprin: Changing Places1986 Ecology of Form (audio book)1982 Sketchbooks of Lawrence Halprin1981 Lawrence Halprin (Process Architecture)1978 Lawrence Halprin: Notebooks 1959-19711972 The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment1969 New York New York: A Study of the Quality, Character, and Meaning of Open Space in Urban Design1968 Cities1963 (revised 1972)

“Motation.” Progressive Architecture Vol.