The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) launched a new online documentary series "Landscape Legends," to chronicle the lives and careers of America's most significant Post War landscape architects.
The inaugural documentary in the series resides online here and features Boston-based Carol R. Johnson. In this first-ever national effort to spotlight the shapers of America’s post war landscape, Johnson acts as both an interpreter and tour guide for her half-century of built work including: Boston’s Mystic Reservation and Kennedy Library Park; Bowdin College, Brunswick, Maine; Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga.; and John Marshall Park in Washington, D.C.
Reflecting on her career, Johnson notes in Landscape Legends, "We saw many things, some of them have not changed in the ensuing 55 years. I’ve changed, but I still love the landscapes that I loved then. And I still love seeing people doing their daily activities and fitting into the urban and the rural landscape.”
Unlike many early 20th Century female practitioners who in recent years have been chronicled and celebrated in books and exhibitions, Johnson did not usually design gardens – she created/planned civic and public spaces, reclaimed formerly polluted industrial sites, guided campus landscapes into the Modern age, and as such is a critical link in understanding the evolution of the profession, and the role for women historically and today in the fields of landscape architecture, urban design and planning.
Landscape Legends contributes to TCLF's ultimate goal of interpreting, preserving, and protecting America's designed landscape legacy through its mission of stewardship through education. In making these engaging free web modules available, Landscape Legends fosters a richer, deeper appreciation for often invisible, typically little-known, and in some instances threatened works of landscape architecture. The series format spotlights the designer’s personal and professional history, their overall design philosophy and how that approach was carried out in their most emblematic projects. Each module will have approximately thirty clips, with each one produced as two-to-four minute mini-documentaries.
Richly edited, the video segments include never before seen archival footage, new photography, and on-location videography. To date, TCLF has videotaped Lawrence Halprin, designer of the FDR Memorial; M. Paul Friedberg, the designer of Riis Plaza in New York City and the Olympic Plaza, Calgary; Edward Daugherty, the designer of the Governor’s Mansion grounds in Atlanta; Richard Haag who produced the iconic Gas Works Park, Seattle; and the late-Ruth Patricia Shellhorn, original landscape architect of Disneyland.
This premier module in the Landscape Legends series was produced in concert with TCLF’s education partner, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and has received generous support from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, and the Hubbard Educational Trust.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, established in 1998, is the only not-for-profit organization dedicated to increasing the public’s awareness of the important legacy of culturally significant landscapes and landscape features to help save and preserve them for future generations.
For additional information contact: Andrea Hill, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 202/483-0553, andrea@tclf.org