Cornelia Hahn Oberlander has been announced as the namesake of the first international landscape architecture prize by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). The Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (Oberlander Prize), which will be conferred biennially beginning in 2021, is the first and only international landscape architecture prize that includes a US$100,000 award, along with two years of public engagement activities.
Based in Vancouver, B.C., the 98-year-old Oberlander has been in practice for more than 70 years. Her notable projects include the New York Times building courtyard (with HMWhite), the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, the Canadian Chancery in Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, and Robson Square and the Public Library, both in Vancouver, and many others. Oberlander has worked on public housing in the United States and Canada, pioneered playground design with the Children's Creative Center at Montreal's Expo '67 (and designed 70 other playgrounds), was an early champion of green roofs, and for decades has advocated for landscape architecture's leading role in addressing environmental, ecological, and social issues and the impact of climate change.
"It was the consensus of the Prize Advisory Committee, which helped shaped the Prize, and TCLF's Board of Directors that Cornelia Oberlander's inspiring and trailblazing career in the field of landscape architecture exemplifies the critical values and ideals of the Prize, and that she is someone who embodies the Prize criteria of creativity, courage, and vision," said Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF's President & CEO.
Photo: Charles A. Birnbaum, Courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation
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