Lawrence Halprin (1916–2009) was a visionary landscape architect who brought modern design to the land, revitalized neglected urban areas and developed ecological conservation measures ahead of their time.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, he spent three teenage years on a kibbutz in what is now Israel, returned to the States and earned a B.A. at Cornell University. While earning an M.A. at the University of Wisconsin, he met and married Anna Schuman, an avant-garde dancer and choreographer. Schuman brought him to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin East, which inspired Halprin to pursue a career in design.
Schuman was a frequent collaborator, and her influence also inspired Halprin's incorporating the concept of choreography into his designs and drawing style. He earned a second bachelor’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where the faculty included Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. After a stint in the Navy, he wound up in San Francisco, where he began his professional career in design working for another iconic modern landscape architect, Thomas Church.
Out West, his best-known projects include Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, Sea Ranch in Northern California, the Seattle World's Fair and a system of public spaces in Portland.
While he respected the environment, his designs always focused on function and improving urban life for the people who would be using them. One of his most recent projects was the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C. While the project was not finished until 1997, Halprin completed the original design in 1974. He was so involved with the construction that he helped pick out individual boulders from the quarry.
Ferris Residence, Spokane, Washington, 1955–56This home's landscape is a wonderful example of Halprin's residential work. Luckily for the Ferris family, Halprin was in their hometown of Spokane working on the landscape of the headquarters for Washingon Water Power (now called Avista). Having commissioned one of the first modern houses in town, the forward-thinking couple approached Halprin about designing their yard. He obliged, and the family has worked hard to preserve his vision for 60-plus years.
The user was always at the forefront of Halprin's mind when he designed spaces. In this fun sketch of the Ferris residence, he envisioned how Mr. and Mrs. Ferris would inhabit the landscape.
Sea Ranch, Northern California, 1962–67Halprin conceived of Sea Ranch, on the Northern California coast, along with like-minded architects Charles W. Moore, Joseph Esherick, William Turnbull, Donlyn Lyndon and Richard Whitaker.
The houses were sited to respect the landscape and stand up to the gusty winds. More important, they were clustered to give everyone a view and preserve the meadow. The acreage is shared rather than divvied up into individual parcels. Halprin's years on the kibbutz helped inspire the idea.
These features have been fairly well preserved in the southern portion of Sea Ranch.
Freeway Park, Seattle, 1970–74Halprin addressed the problem of freeways chopping up and dividing cities by designing Freeway Park in Seattle. The brutalist forms made the park quite popular, but it fell into disrepair and became dangerous years later. Recently, an effort to increase lighting, security patrols and pruning of plants has cut crime significantly.
As cities continue to plan recoveries from the way highways have severed them, the ideals behind Freeway Park continue to inspire. The most famous example is Boston's Big Dig, which went so far as to bury the highway under the city and reconnected the city to its harborfront through a series of public spaces.
Lovejoy Park and an 8-Block Sequence Through Portland, Oregon, 1965–1978At a time when misguided urban renewal projects were decimating city fabrics across the country, Halprin had a keen understanding of human scale and designing for healthy urban function, always keeping the user at the forefront of his mind.
A charming sketchbook page lays out some of Halprin's plans for Portland. He desinged an eight-block sequence of open spaces that touched upon the residents' innate love for the surrounding environment (the Columbia River, Cascade mountain range, streams, rivers and mountain meadows) while still acknowledging the urban character. His overall approach was reminiscent of Frederick Law Olmsted's plan for Boston's emerald necklace: a series of parks and green spaces that connected different parts of the city, designed with the urban dweller in mind.
Halprin dubbed a certain type of his diagrams "motations." They were a combination of movement and notations that mimicked graphic notations of dance steps.
Halprin designed this plaza as an event space for concerts and sculpture shows; he even envisioned dance performances in which dancers arrived from above and around the fountain.
Within this plan for Portland is one of the most iconic Halprin designs, Lovejoy Fountain. "The fountains & plazas are formed to link up with nature
not copy her," he wrote. He began with sketches of natural features and processes and adapted and abstracted them to fit the city's needs.
Though Halprin passed away in 2009, his legacy will live on for many years, as designers and urban planners alike will study his work for many years to come, and more important, people will enjoy using the spaces he designed in the ways he imagined.
For information about how you can help protect Lawrence Halprin's legacy, check out the Lawrence Halprin Landscape Conservancy.
