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

Beginning his career in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1949, Halprin often collaborated with a local circle of modernist architects on relatively modest projects. These figures included William Wurster, Joseph Esherick, Vernon DeMars, Mario J. Ciampi, and others associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Gradually accumulating a regional reputation in the northwest, Halprin first came to national attention with his work the Century 21 Exposition, the Ghirardelli Square adaptive-reuse project in San Francisco, and the Nicollet Mall project in Minneapolis. Halprin's career proved influential to an entire generation in his specific design solutions, his emphasis on user experience to develop those solutions, and his collaborative design process.

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

In his best work, he construed landscape architecture as narrative.

Early and personal life Halprin was born on July 1, 1916 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Zionist leader Rose Halprin and Samuel W. Halprin, where he also grew up. 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. Being Jewish, 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.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1939 at Cornell University, studying horticulture with Professor Lee Gand; he continued his studies at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a Master of Science. While at Wisconsin, his wife Anna convinced Halprin to visit Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's studio in Wisconsin, which in turn sparked Halprin's initial interest in architecture; after he left Talesin, he went to the school library, where he found and was inspired by Christopher Tunnard's Gardens in the Modern Landscape. Returning to school the following Monday, he spoke with the department head of horticulture, who directed him to the landscape architecture group upstairs, where he met Professor Franz Aust. After two weeks, Professor Aust recommended he continue his studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. There, he earned a second bachelor's degree (in landscape architecture, awarded 1942), where his professors included architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. Although Tunnard was teaching at Harvard, he never took a course from him. His Harvard classmates included Catherine Bauer, Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei, and William Wurster.

Career 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. After his discharge from military service, Halprin joined the firm of San Francisco landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church. He had become close to the Wursters during their year at Harvard, and Bill Wurster asked him to stop by if he was ever in California. While visiting Wurster's office, he passed by Church's office, which was on the first floor of the same building; Wurster, who was absent at the time, told his associates to hire Halprin if Church would not. When Halprin introduced himself to Church, he was hired immediately and told "I'm going to pay you more than usual, but I don't want you to come back every two seconds and ask for more money." The projects he worked on in this period included the Dewey Donnell Garden in Sonoma County.

Halprin opened his own office in 1949, becoming one of Church's professional heirs and competitors.Wallace, p. 116. 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. At its largest, during the BART landscaping project, Lawrence Halprin & Associates employed 80.

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, followed by the Heritage Park Plaza in Fort Worth, Texas, designed by Hrlprin and built in 1980, featured by NRHP as its featured listing of the week, on May 21, 2010.

From 1984 to 2002, Halprin designed and created the Armon Hanatziv Promenade in Jerusalem. He also designed several other notable buildings in Jerusalem including the Israel Museum and the Hadassah Medical Center.

Halprin's final three projects were all completed in 2005: the Letterman Digital Arts Center (for George Lucas), the approach to Yosemite Falls, and the amphitheatre at Stern Grove.

Several of Halprin's works have been threatened by redevelopment as they have aged. Some, such as the Water Garden in Olympia, Washington, have fallen victim to neglect and deferred maintenance, and are in states of disrepair. Others have attracted undesired users (homeless, drug users, and skateboarders); rather than address the social issues, some spaces, such as Skyline Park in Denver, completed in 1976, were redesigned (2003) to increase public usership. Critics argue his pieces have become dated and no longer reflect the direction their cities want to take. Budgetary constraints and the urge to "revitalize" threaten some of his projects. In response foundations have been set up to improve care for some of the sites and to try to preserve them in their original state. Prior to its destruction, Skyline Park was documented as Colorado's first Historic American Landscapes Survey project.

Personal life Halprin and his wife, accomplished avant-garde dancer Anna Halprin (née Schuman), were married in 1940. The couple were long-time collaborators; together, they explored the common areas between choreography and the way users move through a public space. 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. He died in Kentfield, California, on October 25, 2009, at the age of 93.

Anna and Lawrence Halprin co-created the "RSVP cycles", a creative methodology that can be applied broadly across all disciplines.

Projects Halprin's range of projects demonstrates his vision of the garden or open space as a stage. 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." The interplay of perspectives informed projects which encompassed urban parks, plazas, commercial and cultural centers and other places of congregation:

+ Selected list of landscape projects by Halprin Title Image City State Year Role / Notes Ferris House Spokane WA 1955 Landscape Washington Water Power 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, BerkeleyCarol Ness, "Landscape designer who built Sproul Plaza leaves a national legacy: Lawrence Halprin, 93, helped shape the modern Berkeley campus," UC Berkeley News, 30 October 2009. 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 Sea Ranch, California Sea Ranch CA 1964 Master landscape plan; this is a historically significant planned community collaboration with developer Al Boeke and architects Joseph Esherick, Charles Willard Moore and others, Ghirardelli Square San Francisco CA 1965 An early model for adaptive reuse of historic buildings. Capitol Towers Sacramento CA 1965 Privately sponsored urban redevelopment. Bay Area Rapid Transit San Francisco CA 1966 Master landscape planning for sections of the system, including station plazas. Oakbrook Center Oak Brook IL 1966 Landscape work Innerbelt Freeway Akron OH 1966 Plan proposed for a park atop the freeway in 1966. 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, known as the Halprin Open Space Sequence and listed on the National Register of Historic Places Transit Mall Portland OR 1971 In Downtown Portland 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. Skyline Park Denver CO 1974 Inspired by Colorado National Monument; largely destroyed following 2003 redesign. 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. Manhattan Square Park Rochester NY 1975 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 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. Grand Hope Park Los Angeles CA 1993 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Washington, D.C. 1997 Letterman Digital Arts Center San Francisco CA 2005 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 Stern Grove Amphitheater San Francisco CA 2005

Notes

Awards 1964 AIA Medal for Allied professionals 1969 Elected fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects 1970 Elected honorary fellow of the Institute of Interior Design 1978 American Society of Landscape Architects Medal 1979 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture 1979 Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement awarded by the AIA 1987 Elected into the National Academy of Design 2002 National Medal of Arts 2002 Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell Golden Ring 2003 ASLA Design Medal 2005 Michaelangelo Award

Publications A Life Spent Changing Places (2011) The Sea Ranch: Diary of an Idea (2003)