Lawrence Halprin

Lawrence Halprin (July 1, 1916 – October 25, 2009) was an American landscape architect, designer and teacher.^[1]

Beginning his career in the

Halprin's point of view and practice are summarized in his definition of modernism:

To be properly understood, Modernism is not just a matter of cubist space but of a whole appreciation of environmental design as a holistic approach to the matter of making spaces for people to live.... Modernism, as I define it and practice it, includes and is based on the vital archetypal needs of human being as individuals as well as social groups.^[2]: 9

In his best work, he construed landscape architecture as narrative.^[3]

Early and personal life

Halprin grew up in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Zionist leader Rose Halprin and Samuel W. Halprin. As a schoolboy, he earned acclaim playing sandlot baseball. He credited his parents with introducing him to art and supporting his artistic inclinations. His mother, in particular, brought him along on her weekly shopping trips to Macy's, after which they would visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^[4]: 2 Being Jewish,^[5][6] after finishing Poly Prep at 16, he went to Israel on a kibbutz for three years near what is today the Israeli port city of Haifa.^{[4]: 3–5 [7]}

He earned a

In 1944, Halprin was commissioned in the United States Navy as a Lieutenant (junior grade). He was assigned to the destroyer USS Morris in the Pacific which was struck by a kamikaze attack. After surviving the destruction of the Morris, Halprin was sent to San Francisco on leave. It was there he would stay following his discharge.

Halprin and his wife, accomplished avant-garde dancer Anna Halprin (née Schuman), were married in 1940.^[8] The couple were long-time collaborators; together, they explored the common areas between choreography and the way users move through a public space.^{[4]: 35 [10]} They have two daughters: Daria Halprin, an American psychologist, author, dancer, and actress, and Rana Halprin, a photographer and activist for Romani and human rights.^[9]

Career

After his discharge from military service, Halprin joined the firm of San Francisco landscape architect

Halprin opened his own office in 1949, becoming one of Church's professional heirs and competitors.[11] His first commission was for Anna's parents, who had recently moved from Chicago; that project was a collaboration with Wurster (Schuman House, Woodside), who was responsible for the house's architecture.^{[4]: 12–13} At its largest, during the BART landscaping project, Lawrence Halprin & Associates employed 80.^[4]: 16

Halprin's work is marked by his attention to human scale, user experience, and the social impact of his designs, in the egalitarian tradition of Frederick Law Olmsted. Halprin was the creative force behind the interactive, 'playable' civic fountains most common in the 1970s, an amenity which continues to greatly contribute to the pedestrian social experience in Portland, Oregon, where "Ira's Fountain" is loved and well-used, and the United Nations Plaza in San Francisco. Park Central Square (1974; Springfield, Missouri) was the first of his works to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), in 2010,^[12][13] followed by the Heritage Park Plaza in Fort Worth, Texas, designed by Halprin and built in 1980, featured by NRHP as its featured listing of the week, on May 21, 2010.

Halprin's final three projects were all completed in 2005: the

Several of Halprin's works have been threatened by redevelopment as they have aged.

Halprin's range of projects demonstrates his vision of the garden or open space as a stage.[2]^: 153 Halprin recognized that "the garden in your own immediate neighborhood, preferably at your own doorstep, is the most significant garden;" and as part of a seamless whole, he valued "wilderness areas where we can be truly alone with ourselves and where nature can be sensed as the primeval source of life."^{[2]: 153–154} The interplay of perspectives informed projects which encompassed urban parks, plazas, commercial and cultural centers and other places of congregation:^[2]: 154

Selected list of landscape projects by Halprin

Title	Image	City	State	Year[a]	Role / Notes
Ferris House		Spokane	WA	1955	Landscape[20]
Washington Water Power[b]		Spokane	WA	1959	Campus
West Coast Memorial to the Missing of World War II		San Francisco	CA	1960	Landscaping plan, located at the Presidio
1962 Seattle World's Fair		Seattle	WA	1962	Master landscaping plan
Sproul Plaza		Berkeley	CA	1962	At the University of California, Berkeley[21]
Saint Francis Square		San Francisco	CA	1964	Cooperative housing project; design based on a pedestrian-oriented site plan, with three-story apartment buildings facing onto three landscaped interior courtyards[22]
Sea Ranch, California		Sea Ranch	CA	1964	Master landscape plan; this is a historically significant Charles Willard Moore and others,[9][23]
Ghirardelli Square		San Francisco	CA	1965	An early model for adaptive reuse of historic buildings.[24]
Capitol Towers		Sacramento	CA	1965	Privately sponsored urban redevelopment.[25]
Bay Area Rapid Transit		San Francisco	CA	1966	Master landscape planning for sections of the system, including station plazas.[26]
Oakbrook Center		Oak Brook	IL	1966	Landscape work
Innerbelt Freeway		Akron	OH	1966	Plan proposed for a park atop the freeway in 1966.[27]
Northwest Plaza		St. Louis	MO	1968	Exterior landscaping and 'horsehead' fountain scheme.
Nicollet Mall		Minneapolis	MN	1968	One of the nation's first transitways
Cascade Plaza		Akron	OH	1969
Park Central Square		Springfield	MO	1970
Ira Keller Fountain and Lovejoy Fountain Park		Portland	OR	1971	Part of a multi-block sequence of public fountains and outdoor rooms in Portland,[24] known as the Halprin Open Space Sequence and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
Transit Mall		Portland	OR	1971	In Downtown Portland[24]
Water Garden		Olympia	WA	1972	At the north plaza of the Employment Security Building. Permanently shut down and drained in the late 1980s due to leaks and cracked foundations.[28][29]
Skyline Park		Denver	CO	1974	Inspired by Colorado National Monument; largely destroyed following 2003 redesign.[30]
United Nations Plaza		San Francisco	CA	1975	Part of the Civic Center complex.
Sculpture Garden at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts		Richmond	VA	1975	Demolished in 2006.[25]
Manhattan Square Park		Rochester	NY	1975	5-acre (20,000 m2) urban park with waterfalls, playground and skating rink
Riverbank Park		Flint	MI	1975
Freeway Park		Seattle	WA	1976	Innovative reclaiming of interstate right-of-way for park space
Plaza 8 Water Feature		Sheboygan	WI	1976	Adjacent to the Mead Public Library, 8th Street
Downtown Mall		Charlottesville	VA	1976	8-9 block pedestrian only zone along the city's historic main street
Main Street		Greenville	SC	1979	Redesigned in 2008.
Heritage Park Plaza		Fort Worth	TX	1980
Levi's Plaza		San Francisco	CA	1982
Library Steps		Los Angeles	CA	1989	Public art and architectural installation of a 20-foot wide double stairway flanking a river rock "stream" that cascades down to a fountain with concrete seating. Halprin incorporated Robert Graham's Source Figure[31] sculpture and pool as the symbolic "source" of his Library Steps which terminate at the Los Angeles Public Library entrance. Commonly known as the Bunker Hill Steps.[32]
Grand Hope Park		Los Angeles	CA	1993
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial		Washington, D.C.		1997	[24]
Letterman Digital Arts Center		San Francisco	CA	2005	[9]
Approach to Yosemite Falls		Yosemite National Park	CA	2005	Loop-trail approach (and associated stonework) to Lower Yosemite Fall, with views of Upper Yosemite Fall[24]
Stern Grove Amphitheater		San Francisco	CA	2005

Notes