Environmental Design

Lawrence Halprin

Since opening his San Francisco design office in 1949, Lawrence Halprin has been in the business of bringing gardens—and their attending civic graces—to American cities. Remarkably, he romanticizes neither. In fact, the key to Halprin’s success may lie in his acceptance of the reality of his materials—natural forms that grow, change, and simply don’t stay put—and of the people whose lives are affected by his work. The central role of human movement in his landscapes is evident in one of his best-known projects, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., which Halprin describes as a “walking environmental experience.” One of the first landscape architects to address landscapes damaged by urban freeways, Halprin’s Seattle Freeway Park and the Westchester Wall have become prototypes for integrating highways into communities. Other important projects include Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco and an overlook to the Old City of Jerusalem.