Tuesday, November 3, 2009

"Shaping the American Landscape" Includes Entries by Faculty and Alumni

by Elizabeth Meyer

A new reference work,"Shaping the American Landscape: New Profiles from the Pioneers of American Landscape Design Project" (University of Virginia Press), includes entries on two beloved figures associated with the early years of the UVa Landscape Architecture program, Professor Benjamin Howland and Lecturer Meade Palmer. This book edited by Charles Birnbaum (UVA Howland Lecturer 1992), Founder and President of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, is an encyclopedia of biographical entries about significant American landscape architects. It follows an earlier encyclopedia of biographies, "Pioneers of American Landscape Design" (2000), edited by Charles Birnbaum and Robin Karson.

UVa Landscape Architecture faculty Ethan Carr, Elizabeth Meyer and Reuben Rainey as well as alumna Sue Nelson authored bibliographic essays in "Shaping the American Landscape". The subjects of their research include significant leaders in the National Park Service, Conrad Wirth and Benjamin Howland, modernist designers Lawrence Halprin and Robert Royston, and the Virginia’s most-recognized twentieth century landscape architect, Meade Palmer, whose Warrenton-based firm was a training ground for dozens of influential landscape architects from Terence Harkness (Professor, University of Illnois), Hallie Boyce (Principal, Olin Studio) to Warren T. Byrd, Jr. (former UVA Dept Chair and Professor Emeritus).

For more information, please see:

Shaping the American Landscape - UVa Press