Conversations with Michael Van Valkenburgh
The following exchange took place during the course of six visits made by Michael Van Valkenburgh to the Knowlton School of Architecture as the inaugural Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professor. Additional comments by members of the design team are take
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The following exchange took place during the course
What were you exposed to, and how can
of six visits made by Michael Van Valkenburgh to
we identify thinking that has been car-
the Knowlton School of Architecture as the inaugural
ried from this into your current work with
Glimcher Distinguished Visiting Professor. Additional
parks at the urban scale?
comments by members of the design team are taken from a roundtable discussion.
Michael Van Valkenburgh: Ten years out of undergrad, I was concerned that the profession
Jane Amidon: You’ve mentioned that major
was turning its back on design. The garden was a
aspects of your early career were influ-
means to look more closely at design. I had recent-
enced by several of the leading postwar
ly signed on as an assistant professor at Harvard
modernists such as Dan Kiley and Rich
and had just worked for four years for Kevin
Haag. Much of your research at this time
Lynch, the city planner. Kevin had great respect
focused on the garden scale—appropriate
for landscape as a design medium; he believed
to the 1980s, as many in the profession
that if you could create beauty in a small space
returned to the idea of critical site design
and solve the programmatic requirements of the
after decades of greater concern with envi-
garden, you could probably work on landscapes
ronmental and social issues. Your research,
at any scale. I set out to interview garden design-
resulting exhibition, and publication of
ers whose work I admired, including James Rose,
Built Landscapes: Gardens of the Northeast
A. E. Bye, and Dan Kiley (many of whose projects
in 1984 helped support the renewed focus
I had visited on a self-guided tour in 1973). Alan
on articulation of site-specific qualities.
Ward sometimes traveled with me to capture the 11
gardens in photographs. I was also interested in
my early academic work and my office’s current
ied during a Dumbarton Oaks fellowship. It was
urban parks projects, one could say that Lynch
important to include her as a non-modern in the
influenced my understanding of the urban condi-
show, in addition to Fletcher Steele, who in some
tion as it relates to parks. In some ways, the design
ways was a bridge between the great neoclassical
of a park is not unlike the design of a garden. But
estate designers and modern landscape architec-
the scale is wildly different. And the complexity
ture. Most of all, I wanted to visit the gardens with
of context—what’s around it—changes a lot. Both
the designers themselves and to have the land-
provide experiences of color, space, texture, and
scapes properly photographed. I wanted to make
an immersion within landscape material as an art
the profession look noble, the way it is. I wanted
form. But a garden is for an individual, and a park
to create a museum-quality exhibition that would
is for everyone.
make people see landscape architecture as a profes-
There was an important internship in London
sion of beauty. Although they intimidated me, I
in 1970 with the English
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