Two distinguished landscape architects will be on campus in the coming weeks to deliver lectures as part of the Department of Landscape Architecture’s two endowed lectures series.
Laurie D. Olin will deliver the inaugural Kenneth I. Helphand Endowed Lecture on Tuesday, April 22, at the Ford Alumni Center Giustina Ballroom, 1720 E. 13th Avenue, Eugene. The 5:30 p.m. gathering is free and open to the public.
Ken Smith will deliver the nineteenth Mary Kim McKeown Memorial Lecture at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 1, in 123 Pacific Hall, 1025 University Street, Eugene; and at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, May 2, at the White Stag Block, University of Oregon in Portland, 70 N.W. Couch St., Portland. Both gatherings are free and open to the public.
Olin leads the Olin Partnership in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A teacher, author, and one of the most renowned landscape architects practicing today, he will speak about “Civic Realism and Landscape.” From vision to realization, Olin, FASLA, has guided many of OLIN’s signature projects, which span the history of the studio from the Washington Monument Grounds in Washington, D.C., 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.
Above left: Laurie Olin, FASLA, will deliver the Helphand lecture on April 22. Above right: Ken Smith, FASLA, will deliver the McKeown lecture on May 1.
Olin 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.
Ken Smith—one of the best-known of a generation of landscape architects equally at home in the worlds of architecture, and urbanism—will speak on “Larger Landscapes.” Smith, FASLA, has created art installations, private gardens, and numerous public spaces, including parks and commercial projects. His most critically and publicly acclaimed designs include the Roof Garden of the Museum of Modern the World One project in Mumbai, and the American Express 9/11 Memorial art installation.
In addition to maintaining his own landscape architectural practice, Workshop: Ken Smith Landscape Architect, Smith has taught and lectured at Harvard University and the City College of New York. He has been honored with the California Preservation Foundation Design Award, the New York AIA Honor Award for urban design, the Excellence in Design Award from the Public Design Commission of the City of New York, ASLA National Honor Award for analysis and planning, and many others. Smith is a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
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. 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.
The McKeown lecture series is made possible by contributions of friends, classmates, and family members of Kim McKeown, BLA ’82, to the University of Oregon Foundation. Kim McKeown received her BLA in 1982 and had recently been made an associate in the office of RHAA in Mill Valley, California, when she was tragically killed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that hit San Francisco and Oakland, California. She had just started working on the master plan for the University of California at Riverside.
Above: Professor Emeritus Kenny Helphand, FASLA.