Harriet Pattison

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Harriet Pattison
Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, U.S.
OccupationLandscape architect

Harriet Pattison (October 29, 1928 – October 2, 2023) was an American landscape architect.

Early life and education

Pattison was born in

Yale School of Drama[2] and took graduate philosophy courses at the University of Edinburgh. After, she moved to Philadelphia to study piano under Edith Braun at the Curtis Institute of Music. In 1958, she met architect Louis Kahn. Kahn began a relationship with her and encouraged her study of landscape architecture.[2]

Career

Pattison's first landscape architecture apprenticeship was at the offices of

modernist landscape architect Dan Kiley in Vermont.[3] She received a MA in landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1967, studying with Ian McHarg, Roberto Burle Marx, M. Paul Friedberg, and others.[4] Pattison also designed a master plan for the 125-acre (51 ha) The Hershey Company headquarters.[4]

After graduating from University of Pennsylvania, she joined the landscape architecture firm of George Patton. She collaborated with

Personal life

Her personal relationship with Louis Kahn is described in the 2003 documentary by their son, the film's director, Nathaniel Kahn, My Architect: A Son's Journey.[6] In 2020, she published her and Louis Kahn's correspondences in Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn[7] (Yale University Press, 2020).

Pattison died at home in

Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 2023, at age 94.[1]

Awards and honors

In 2016, Pattison became a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) at age 87.[4]

Books

  • Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 2020.

References

External links