Lawrence Halprin was born on July 1, 1916 in Brooklyn, New York.
Timeline
1916
Halprin met Ann Schuman (later, Anna Halprin) in Madison, Wisconsin, and they got married by September 1940. They visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin in Spring Green, which deeply inspired him.
He graduated high school in Brooklyn in 1933 and returned to Palestine
1920
1915
1930 1925
1929
1935
He travelled with his family (see fig. 1) to France, Italy, Egypt, Jerusalem. He stayed on the outskirts of Jerusalem for 4 months where he had his Bar Mitzwah He got involved with the kibbutz movement (a community involved in agriculture) that sourced his connection to the land, and helped establish Kibbutz Ein Hashofet (see fig. 2) in 1937 - a utopian community that would influence his future landscape projects.
Fig. 1 Lawrence Halprin with his mother Rose Luria Halprin, and father, Samuel W. Halprin (Birnbaum, C.A., 2008) Fig. 2 Members of Kibbutz Ein Hashofet Preparing the Soil for Tree Planting in the Ephraim Hills, 1937 (Kale, S., 2016)
1940
1933
Childhood influences
Lawrence Halprin (July 1st 1916 – October 25th 2009)
American Landscape Architect, Urban Designer and Artist-practitioner A biography on Halprin’s landscape design development and legacy in America 1
Peter Walker and Melanie Louise Simo, Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape (London: The MIT Press, 1996), 167 Walker and Louise Simo, Invisible Gardens, 169 3 Walker and Louise Simo, Invisible Gardens, 169 4 “The Landscape Architecture of Lawrence Halprin,” The Cultural Landscape Foundation, accessed August 30, 2020, https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/introduction.html 5 Alison Bick Hirsch, “Conclusion: Choreography and the contemporary city,” in City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America, (University of Minnesota Press 2014): 268 2
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Growing up, Halprin’s art and socio-political pursuits were deeply influenced by his parents6 Rose Luria Halprin and Samuel W. Halprin, both of whom were prominent social and political figures in America.7 In the early years that he travelled abroad with his family, Halprin was most appreciative of the historical feel of Jerusalem’s landscape, which had a significant influence on his design approach 8 . In an interview with Charles A. Birnbaum 9 , Halprin reminisced about his return to Israel at around the age of 16, when he encountered the kibbutz community. Having lived with them for a year, Halprin was “knocked apart” 10 by their interconnected, symbiotic communal way of life 11, and this personal experience inspired him throughout his design career, including one of his most famous designs – the Sea 12 Ranch project of 1963 .
Alison Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins of Larry and Anna Halprin,” in City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America, (University of Minnesota Press 2014): 25 Lawrence Halprin, interviewed by Charles A. Birnbaum, Office of Lawrence Halprin, March 2008. Retrieved from The Cultural Landscape Foundation. “Lawrence Halprin Oral History” YouTube video, Jan 16, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iGf8iZAuKs&list=PL115E2935804558F8&index=3 8 Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins”, 26 9 Halprin, interview. 10 Halprin, interview. 11 Kenneth I. Helphand, “Halprin in Israel,” Landscape Journal 31, no. 1/2 (2012): 201, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43332538 7
‘42
1950 1945
He received a scholarship to attend Bachelors of Landscape Architecture program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design
His involvement with the kibbutz inspired Lawrence Halprin to study B.Sc. in Plant Sciences at Cornell University School of Agriculture After graduating his B.Sc, he set out to the Midwest with the advent of WWII and studied M.Sc. in Horticulture at the University of Wisconsin.
Lawrence Halprin was a pioneering landscape architect and urban designer during the twentieth century. His projects reflected his love for nature and for people, as he designed open spaces that were meaningful and site-specific, and focused on movement, process, sensory experience and design synthesis1 . His holistic approach to landscape design by incorporating art, choreography, philosophy, culture, politics, and more 2, would in time earn Halprin titles such as “artist-practitioner” and “synthesizing generalist”.3 Halprin’s designs brought a unique and unprecedented perspective into the field of landscape architecture 4 in America by counteracting the isolating effect brought on by the nation’s existing Modernist master plan designs of the ‘60s, thereby invigorating life in America’s public realm.5
Fig. 19 Lawrence Halprin (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
1939
In the midst of his degree, Halprin enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December 1943 and in March 1944, he was sent aboard the USS Morris VII in Central Pacific to work on navigation systems
During the 1950s, Halprin worked on postwar California residential gardens, (see fig. 3) small housing projects, campus master plans as well as suburban shopping centers.
1950s
1949
1955 Halprin opened his own firm in 1949 called ‘Lawrence Halprin Associates’, located in San Francisco.
In April 1945, Halprin was sent to San Francisco on survivor’s leave after a kamikaze attack on the ship. He then chose to join the office of landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church, who he worked with for the next 4 years.
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Fig. 3 1948 The Donnell Garden pool, Sonoma, CA. (Beautiful Magazine, 1951)
Education Halprin’s experience with the kibbutz inspired him to study Bachelor of Science in Plant Sciences at the Cornell University School of Agriculture 13 which informed his lifelong passion for understanding plant and human adaptability to various environmental conditions. The advent of WWII prevented Halprin from returning to the kibbutz, and he instead set out to pursue Master of Science in horticulture at the University of Wisconsin, where he met Ann Schuman (later, Anna Halprin), a passionate dance major (see fig. 13). His visit to American architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and school, Taliesin East, in Wisconsin, upon the suggestion of Anna Halprin, made a significant impression on him which inspired him to look up on architecture in the library. He happened to chance upon architect Christopher Tunnard’s Gardens in the Modern 14 Landscape (1938) , which introduced him to the multi-disciplinary field of landscape architecture, a profession that deeply resonated with the sense of community from the kibbutz experience within him15. Anna Halprin taught dance and accompanied him in his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Here, the Halprins received guidance from prominent Bauhaus architects and designers like Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer, who had fled to America due to the war16. Lawrence Halprin’s curriculum in Harvard showed him the significance of collaboration between the different design disciplines, an experience resonant with that of the kibbutz, and had a significant impact on his design approach and future collaborative workshops with Anna Halprin, such as the R.S.V.P cycles, where he explored design in the context of 17 choreography and movement in space (see fig. 14).
Fig. 13 Lawrence and Anna Halprin in Wisconsin, c. 1940 (Saviotti, A., 2016)
Anna Halprin was one of the most significant influences on Lawrence Halprin’s design ideology and career, both of them redefining the the definition and boundaries of design and dance through interdisplinary collaboration.
Fig. 14 1968 Ritual Group Drawing, Workshop at Sea Ranch, CA. (Graham Foundation, 2020).
Organized by the Halprins, the workshops conducted in the 1960s brought people of different disciplines together in a collective effort to explore different approaches to environmental awareness.
Image references Halprin, interview. Fig. 1 A. Birnbaum, Charles. Lawrence Halprin with his mother Rose Luria Halprin, and father, Samuel W. Halprin, 2016. Photograph. Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins”, 26 https://dezignark.com/blog/lawrence-halprin-biography-parents-as-mentors-1-of-10/ 14 Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins”, 28 Fig. 2 Kale, Shelly. Members of Kibbutz Ein Hashofet Preparing the Soil for Tree Planting in the Ephraim Hills, c. 1937, 2016. Photograph. 15 Halprin, interview https://experiments.californiahistoricalsociety.org/lawrence-halprin-landscape-architecture-israel/ 16 Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins”, 29 Fig. 3 Beautiful magazine. The Donnell Garden pool, Sonoma, CA, c.1951. Photograph. https://www.dwell.com/article/kidney-shaped-pools-skateboarding-c3493888/6532793649607340032 17 Judith Wasserman, “A World in Motion: The Fig.4 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. 1962- 68 Ghirardelli Square, CA, 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/ghirardelli-square.html Fig. 5 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. 1962-71 Justin Herman Plaza, CA - Vaillancourt Fountain, 2016. Photograph. Creative Synergy of Lawrence and Anna https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/justin-herman-plaza.html Halprin,” Landscape Journal 31, no. 1/2 Fig. 6 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. 1970 Ira Keller Forecourt Fountain, Portland, 2016. Photograph. (2012): 33, https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/ira-keller-forecourt-fountain.html https://www.jstor.org/stable/43332529 Fig. 7 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. 1969-76 Freeway Park, WA , 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/freeway-park.html 12
1960
Project by: Manasi Chopdekar (935401) The University of Melbourne Interpreting Australian Landscape Design (LARC30002) Assignment 1: Biography report
In the 1960s, Halprin’s projects transitioned to redesigning the public realm (plazas, freeways, forecourts, transit-heavy street corridors) in America (see fig. 4, 5 and 6)
1960s
‘66
‘71
Anna and Lawrence Halprin conducted series of workshops to experiement with and explore choreography and architecture
1970s
1965 Fig. 4 1962- 68 Ghirardelli Square, CA (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
Fig. 5 1962-71 Justin Herman Plaza, CA - Vaillancourt Fountain (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
Fig. 6 1970 Ira Keller Forecourt Fountain, Portland (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
1980
Fig. 7 1969-76 Freeway Park, WA (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
27 28 29
Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins”, 28 Halprin, interview. Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins”, 39 21 Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins”, 40 22 Bick Hirsch, “The creative origins”, 45 23 Walker and Louise Simo, Invisible Gardens, 153 24 Walker and Louise Simo, Invisible Gardens, 161 25 Walker and Louise Simo, Invisible Gardens, 156 26 Halprin, interview
Halprin, interview. Halprin, interview. “Freeway Park,” The Cultural Landscape Foundation, accessed August 30, 2020, https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/freeway-park.html 30 “Sigmund Stern Grove,” The Cultural Landscape Foundation, accessed August 30, 2020, https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/sigmund-stern-grove.html 31 Akash Matthew, “Lawrence Halprin,” SlideShare, published November 17, 2016, https://www.slideshare.net/akashmatthew/lawrence-halprin
2010
2005
2009
Lawrence Halprin passed away at the age of 93 on October 25, 2009, at his home in Kentfield, CA.
Fig. 12 1998-05 Sigmund Stern Grove Site Plan (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016) Fig. 10 1974-97 Fountain at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (Foley, R., 2016)
Timeline reference: Bick Hirsch, A. “The creative origins of Larry and Anna Halprin,” in City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America, 25-60. University of Minnesota Press, 2014.
Awards
Key landscape design projects
Lawrence Halprin believed that a landscape was incomplete without the people who would bring it to life 25, and left behind a legacy of landscapes that translate his love for nature, balance and enhance both, the environment and its people, and sustain a creative and enriching lifestyle.
20
1995
Fig. 9 1976-80 Heritage Park Plaza - opening day event (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
Fig. 11 2002-05 Yosemite Falls Corridor (Bond, P., 2016)
2000
He continued to design integrated and interconnected public spaces around places that people frequent in the city (offices, libraries etc.), with elaborate water features (see fig. 8, 9 and 10).
Halprin continued to focus on public realm, and designed for major urban renewal programs, focusing on pedestrianizing and reestablishing the connection between human and nature using modernist (see fig.7) and post-modernist design styles.
Halprin’s design curriculum at Harvard focused mainly on housing and reconstruction for war-effort workers18, given the context of his education during the period of WWII. When he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in the midst of his degree, his skills in architecture and landscape allowed him to work on navigation systems aboard the USS Morris VII in Central Pacific. When Halprin had to return to San Francisco on survivor’s leave19, he took this opportunity to visit his friend and fellow architect from Harvard, William Wurster, who offered him a job, but also informed him of landscape architect Thomas Church’s interest in hiring him at his office in San Francisco. San Francisco’s natural landscapes and regional qualities provided Halprin with a new opportunity to design and create – as a landscape architect – and this prompted him to join Thomas Church’s firm20. While in office, Halprin was influenced by Church’s idea of gardens as an expansion of people’s lives and as an assertion of their individuality 21 and designed private gardens such as the Donnell Garden in Sonoma County, California (see fig. 3 and 15). His design experiments with sequences of spatial experience in private garden setting later informed his large-scale garden designs in the public realm 22. When Halprin left Church’s office, he wanted to make a bigger social impact through his designs, for amidst the civil and racial strife in the country, garden designs were beginning to lose their significance.23 He established his own firm, ‘Lawrence Halprin Associates’, and focused on people’s participation in using, but also designing, as an integral part of public open space design. It allowed Halprin to create open spaces that facilitated multipurpose and a sense of inclusion 24 and inspired projects like the Freeway Park and Sigmund Stern Grove in America (see fig. 7, 12, 16, 17 and 18).
19
post 1980s
1980s 1985
1975
Career development and legacy in landscape design
18
1990
Fig. 8 1979-82 Levi’s Plaza watergardens in the 'hard park' (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
Halprin’s projects after the 1980s looked towards designing in a more organic and natural style due to his love for nature and the wilderness (see fig. 11, 12, 18), and limited the use of modernist and post-modernist design styles.
Donnell Pool, Sonoma County, California (1948)
Fig. 15 1948 Donnell Pool Site Plan (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
Postwar Californian residential garden Designed by Halprin and Church as a garden that: Requires little maintenance, Uses natural plants and stone in sculptures and as a symbolic way to reconnect with the Earth.26 Abandons classical design, axial orientation, influence from precedent designs 27 (see fig. 15), Place of multipurpose for people of all age groups, with a spectacular view into the landscape beyond (see fig. 3).
Freeway Park, Seattle, Washington State (1969-76)
Problem of Seattle’s downtown city divide by Interstate 5 to opportunity for redevelopment (see fig. 17). The park comprises: Series of babylonian style gardens unified by board-formed concrete planting enclosures 28 (see fig. 7 and 16). Acoustical treatments to minimize the noise of the freeway in the garden. Aims to reconnect the city’s residents with the regional landscape.29
Fig. 16 Freeway Park Site Plan (The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 2016)
AIA medal for Allied professionals....................1964 Elected as Fellow in the American society.........1969 of Landscape Architects Elected as Honorary Fellow of the Institute.......1970 of Interior Design American Society of Landscape.........................1976 Architects medal Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal..................1979 in Architecture AIA Gold medal for Distinguished......................1979 achievement. Elected into the National Academy of Design.....1987 National Medal of Arts.........................................2002 Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell Golden Ring..........2002 ASLA Design Medal............................................2003 Michaelangelo Award...........................................2003
References
Bick Hirsch, Alison. City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. I. Helphand, Kenneth. “Halprin in Israel,” Landscape Journal 31, no. 1/2 (2012): 199-217, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43332538 Lawrence Halprin. Interviewed by Charles A. Birnbaum. Office of Lawrence Halprin, March 2008. Retrieved from The Cultural Landscape Foundation. “Lawrence Halprin Oral History” YouTube video, Jan 16, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iGf8iZAuKs&list=PL115E2935804558F8&index=3
Fig. 17 Freeway Park (Longstreth, R., 1981)
Sigmund Stern Grove, San Francisco, California (1998-2005) Designed as a free concert venue, with an aim to reinvigorate the open green space: series of low green terraces along the natural slope 30 stepped granite retaining wall and seating (see fig. 18) Fig. 18 Sigmund Stern Grove (Atkinson, C., 2016)
Matthew, Akash. “Lawrence Halprin,” SlideShare. Published November 17, 2016, https://www.slideshare.net/akashmatthew/lawrence-halprin The Cultural Landscape Foundation. “The Landscape Architecture of Lawrence Halprin.” Accessed August 30, 2020. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/introduction.html Walker, Peter and Melanie Louise Simo, Invisible Gardens: The Search for Modernism in the American Landscape. London: The MIT Press, 1996. Wasserman, Judith. “A World in Motion: The Creative Synergy of Lawrence and Anna Halprin,” Landscape Journal 31, no. 1/2 (2012): 33-52, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43332529
Image references Fig. 8 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. 1979-82 Levi’s Plaza - watergardens in the 'hard park' , 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/levis-plaza.html Fig. 9 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. 1976-80 Heritage Park Plaza - opening day event, 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/heritage-park-plaza.html Fig. 10 Foley, Roger. Fountain at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/FDR-memorial.html Fig. 11 Bond, Philip. 2002-05 Yosemite Falls Corridor, 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/yosemite-falls-corridor.html Fig. 12 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. 1998-05 Sigmund Stern Grove Site Plan, 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/sigmund-stern-grove.html Fig. 13 Saviotti, Allesandra. Lawrence and Anna Halprin in Wisconsin, c. 1940, 2016. Photograph reproduced from a gelatin silver print. http://www.drosteeffectmag.com/environment-stage-anna-lawrence-halprins-experiments/
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Fig. 14 Graham Foundation. 1968 Ritual Group Drawing, Workshop at Sea Ranch, CA. 2020.http://grahamfoundation.org/public_exhibitions/5241-experiments-in-environment-the-halprin-workshops-1966-1971# Fig. 15 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. 1948 Donnell Pool Site Plan , 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/donnell-pool.html Fig. 16 The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Freeway Park Site Plan, 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/freeway-park.html Fig. 17 Longstreth, Richard. Freeway Park, 1981. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/freeway-park.html Fig. 18. Atkinson, Caitlin. Sigmund Stern Grove, 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/sigmund-stern-grove.html Fig. 19. The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Lawrence Halprin. 2016. Photograph. https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/halprinlegacy/crocker-court.html
Project by: Manasi Chopdekar (935401) The University of Melbourne Interpreting Australian Landscape Design (LARC30002) Assignment 1: Biography report