The Kenneth I. Helphand Endowed Lecture Fund at the University of Oregon Foundation was established in 2013 to give students the benefit of learning from top scholars for years to come. Professor Helphand, FASLA, is among the elite worldwide in landscape history and theory. A professor of landscape architecture for forty years, he is author of several award-winning books, was editor of Landscape Journal, is an honorary member of the Israel Association of Landscape Architects, and is former chair of the Senior Fellows in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. He retired from full-time teaching at UO in fall 2012.
2018: Kenneth Helphand
Lawrence Halprin: Touchstones and Transformations
Lawrence Halprin was one of America’s great landscape architects of the modern era. An innovator and trendsetter, his work ranged from private gardens to urban design to regional plans. The lecture looks at the totality of his career including the touchstones for his projects and his design methods. It explores his iconic designs: the FDR Memorial, Ghirardelli Square, Dance Deck, the Portland Open Space Sequence, Freeway Park, Levis Strauss Plaza, Haas Promenade, Nicollet Mall, and Yosemite National Park.
2017: Nina-Marie Lister
Resilience beyond Rhetoric: Design for a New Sustainability
Nina-Marie Lister gave the 2017 Helphand Endowed Lecture on February 6, 2017.
Lister is an Associate Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University in Toronto. Her research, teaching, and practice engage the interface between landscape infrastructure and ecological processes within contemporary metropolitan regions, with a particular focus on design for resilience and complex, adaptive systems approaches. Her talk will expand on her chapter written for the new book Nature and Cities: The Ecological Imperative in Urban Design and Planning (2016), co-edited by Frederick R. Steiner. She is the co-editor of Projective Ecologies (with Chris Reed, 2014), and author of many scholarly and professional papers and book chapters. Lister is a fellow of the Center for Humans and Nature, founder of the Ecological Design Lab at Ryerson, and a researcher with the Ryerson Urban Water collective.
2016: Michelle Delk
Exploring the Edge: Between Architecture and Landscape
Landscape architect Michelle Delk is a partner in the multi-disciplinary firm Snøhetta, and Director of Landscape Architecture for the firm. The design process at Snøhetta is collaborative, transdisciplinary, and focused on social and environmental sustainability. The firm prioritizes relationships and recognition of the particularities of place. This is achieved through workshops, conversations, and open exchange, where ideas move freely between designer, client, and consultant. Public participation and community engagement is a core value in Delk’s work. She is committed to expanding the public understanding of the role of landscape architecture in building resilient communities.
Delk has led the design of numerous downtown plazas, parks, streetscape revitalizations, and public spaces. As Director of Landscape Architecture, she is currently heading the landscape design for Snøhetta's Willamette Falls Riverwalk project in Oregon City. The project will open the Willamette Falls to public access for the first time since the 1830s. Delk is also the lead designer for the new Calgary Public Library plaza, the North Tryon Vision Plan for Charlotte, Virginia, and the Temple University Library in Philadelphia. She received an MLA degree from the University of Colorado Denver (2001) and a BA in fine art from the University of Iowa (1997). Before joining Snohetta, Delk was a Principal/Landscape Architect for the Denver-based landscape architecture firm Civitas.
2015: John Dixon Hunt
Design is of Things Not Yet Appearing: Gardens & Landscapes on Paper
The UO Landscape Architecture Department’s Helphand Endowed Lecture in 2015 was distinguished landscape historian, John Dixon Hunt, Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania.
In his presentation, Professor Hunt discussed an ensemble of unbuilt landscape projects that reveal much about underlying currents in contemporary thinking about the design of landscapes and making places. Examples include landscape design projects from Paolo Bürgi, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Bernard Lassus, and the Portuguese firm PROAP.
John Dixon Hunt is Professor of Landscape History and Theory, Emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania, and former Director of Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. He is the founding editor of Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes), and has published widely and to great critical acclaim. Recent books include Historical Ground: The Role of History in Landscape Architecture (2014), and The World of Gardens (2012). Dr. Hunt is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the title of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture, election to the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Venice, and a residency at the American Academy in Rome. He received his Ph.D. from Bristol University.
2014: Laurie Olin, FASLA
Civic Realism and Landscape
The UO Landscape Architecture Department’s inaugural Helphand Endowed Lecture in 2014 was Laurie Olin, a distinguished teacher, author, and one of the most renowned landscape architects practicing today. He is the founding principal at the Olin Partnership, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From vision to realization, he has guided many of OLIN’s signature projects, which span the history of the studio from the Washington Monument Grounds in Washington, DC to Bryant Park in New York City. His recent projects include the AIA award-winning Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Simon and Helen Director Park in Portland, Oregon.
Laurie studied civil engineering at the University of Alaska and pursued architecture at the University of Washington, where Richard Haag encouraged him to focus on landscape. He is currently Practice Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught for forty years, and is former chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University.
2013: Landscape Thinking Symposium
Landscape Thinking was a one-day symposium that brought together a dozen top scholars and practitioners of landscape architecture to enlighten, delight, and inspire students, professionals, faculty members, alumni, and friends.
This special symposium honored Professor Kenneth Helphand on his retirement from forty years of teaching history, theory, and design in landscape architecture. With deep appreciation to a number of generous contributors, the Kenneth I. Helphand Endowed Lecture Fund at the University of Oregon Foundation was created and will give students the benefit of learning from top scholars for years to come.
On Exhibit in the Wallace and Grace Hayden Gallery, Lawrence Hall
“Draw to Think | Think to Draw”
Drawings by Kenneth Helphand
Landscape Thinking Lecturers
Anne Spirn
Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning
School of Architecture and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Walter J. Hood
Hood Studio, Oakland, California
Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and Urban Design
College of Environmental Design
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California
E. Marc Treib
Professor Emeritus of Architecture
College of Environmental Design
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California
"In Praise of Master Plans"
Ben Helphand
Executive Director, NeighborSpace
Chicago, Illinois
"Labor in the Landscape: Concealing and Revealing the Human Hand in Community Gardens"
Cynthia Girling
Professor and Chair, Landscape Architecture Program
School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
“The Life of Ecoburb”
Tal Alon-Mozes, PhD
Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning
The Technion—Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa, Israel
"Kenneth Helphand and the Making of the Israeli Garden"
Liska Clemence Chan
Associate Professor and Head
Department of Landscape Architecture
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
“Image to Imagine”
Kenneth Helphand
Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus
Department of Landscape Architecture
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon