Lawrence Halprin's Skyline Park

Description

Skyline Park is the first book in our new Masterworks of Modern Landscape series. Designed by acclaimed landscape designer Lawrence Halprin in the 1970s, the park was part of an effort for urban renewal in downtown Denver and became a signature landmark of the city after its construction, attracting local residents, businesses, workers, and visitors alike. Skyline Park exemplifies Halprin's unique vision of the importance of a city's "livability" within the urban context, offering an oasis from the surrounding streets and businesses while still remaining a part of the city's vibrant downtown area. Drawing on Denver's natural surroundings for inspiration, Halprin captured colourado's rugged beauty in his design. This monograph documents the history of the park's conception, construction and use in the time before its complete redesign in 2003, which essentially destroyed Halprin's original work. Conceived as a series of short monographs, the Masterworks of Modern Landscape series spotlights iconic landscapes that have been demolished or substantially altered and in the process chronicle their history and honour their legacies. Additionally, this series is intended to highlight our mid-century landscape treasures while raising awareness of their unique design value, inherent vulnerability and historic preservation needs. The series serves as both a reminder of a significant designed landscape while also providing a "best practices" model for documentation.

Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR is the Founder and President of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). Prior to joining TCLF, Mr. Birnbaum spent fifteen years as the coordinator of the National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative (HLI) and a decade in private practice in New York City with a focus on landscape preservation and urban design. His recent projects include two web-based initiatives: What's Out There? (a searchable database of the nation's designed landscape heritage) and Cultural Landscapes as Classrooms. His has authored and edited numerous publications including Shaping the American Landscape (UVA Press, 2009), Design with Culture: Claiming America's Landscape Heritage (UVA Press 2005), Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture (1999) and its follow-up publication, Making Post-War Landscapes Visible (2004, both for Spacemaker Press), Pioneers of American Landscape Design (McGraw Hill 2000) and The Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes (National Park Service, 1996). Ann Komara is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver. She is a licensed landscape architect as well as a landscape historian. Her work on cultural landscapes addresses the theoretical and experiential aspects of landscape reception, landscape design as a cultural product reflecting specific material and building practices, and issues of preservation for modern landscapes.