Lawrence Halprin

One of the world's leading landscape architects and environmental planners, Lawrence Halprin was long at the forefront of urban design innovation in the United States. His practice comprises a catalogue of leading-edge environmental design in projects ranging from inner urban centers to National Parks. His reputation was built on over sixty years of expanding expectations for the environmental realm.

Projects that were transformed by his particular sensitivity and talent became benchmarks in the development of current values. All of these projects spurred others to reassess the value and use of their resources. These projects include:

  • The Sea Ranch, a residential development on the California coast which is recognized for its great sensitivity to community values and the natural environment.
  • Ghirardelli Square, an early model for the reuse of historic buildings in an urban environment.
  • The plazas and grand fountains of Portland, Oregon, a joyful participation in public open spaces (they say "come-in", not "stay out").
  • Seattle Freeway Park, an environmental design to heal an urban freeway wound.
  • Levi Plaza in San Francisco, an urban corporate campus as an alternative to flight to the suburbs.
  • The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, a presidential memorial in Washington D.C. which set a new standard for the public's involvement in their past.

Books

  • The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
    Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1997.
  • The Sea Ranch...Diary of an Idea
    Comet Studio, The Sea Ranch, 1995. Reprint Spacemaker Press, 2002.
  • Sketchbooks of Lawrence Halprin
    Process Architecture Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo, 1981.
  • Process Architecture No. 4
    Process Architecture Publishing Co., Ltd., Tokyo, 1978. Reprint 1981.
  • Taking Part: A Workshop Approach to Collective Creativity
    Lawrence Halprin and Jim Burns, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1974.
  • RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment
    George Braziller Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1970.
  • The Freeway in the City
    co-author, The Urban Advisor to the Federal Highway Administration, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1968.
  • New York, New York
    Department of Housing and Urban Development and The New York Foundation, New York, 1968.
  • Freeways
    Reinhold Publishing Corp., New York, 1966.
  • Cities
    Reinhold Publishing Corp., New York, 1963. Revised Ed. MIT Press, Cambridge and London, 1972.