The Cultural Landscape Foundation Establishes International Landscape Architecture Prize

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), a non-profit Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy organization, announced that it will establish an international landscape architecture prize to be conferred biennially. This is the first and only international landscape architecture prize that includes a US$100,000 monetary award. In addition, the Prize features two years of related public engagement activities to honor a living practitioner, collaborative or team for their creative, courageous, and visionary work in the field of landscape architecture. The inaugural Prize will be awarded in 2021.

TCLF board co-chair Joan Shafran and her husband Rob Haimes have generously provided a lead gift of US$1 million to underwrite the Prize, which was collectively matched by the rest of the board and other donors, launching a US$4.5 million fundraising campaign to endow it in perpetuity.

“Landscape architecture is one of the most complex and, arguably, the least understood art forms. It challenges practitioners to be design innovators often while spanning the arts and sciences in addressing many of the most pressing social, environmental, and cultural issues in contemporary society,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, TCLF’s founder, president, and CEO. “We are grateful for the leadership provided by Joan Shafran and Rob Haimes in supporting this prize, which aims to raise the visibility of the field and its practitioners.”

Landscape architects, artists, architects, planners, urban designers, and others who have designed a significant body of landscape-architectural projects are eligible for this award. The Prize will examine the state of landscape architecture through the honoree’s practice, showcasing how landscape architecture and its practitioners are transforming the public realm by addressing social, ecological, cultural, environmental, and other challenges in their work.

“Our involvement with TCLF, and seeing and learning about the inspired work of landscape architects, led us to think about how to raise the public’s awareness of their contributions in a more dramatic way. Supporting the Prize came out of that,” said Joan Shafran and Rob Haimes, lead donors for the prize. “We hope the Prize will provide not just recognition of exceptional people and projects but also promote a wider public discussion of the role of landscape architecture in life.”

A Prize Advisory Committee was established in 2018 to provide critical guidance in developing the framework of the Prize and the parameters of the nominee selection and jury process. Committee members include Elizabeth K. Meyer (chair), FASLA, the Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture; Thomas Bacon, FAIA, founding partner of Lionstone Investments, Advisory Board Member of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, and chairman of the Houston Parks Board for a decade; Adriaan Geuze, IR, RLA, OALA, founding partner and design director of West 8 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and New York, New York; Gary R. Hilderbrand, FASLA, FAAR, founding principal and partner of Reed Hilderbrand in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New Haven, Connecticut; Joeb Moore, FAIA, NCARB, principal of Joeb Moore + Partners in Greenwich, Connecticut; Laurie D. Olin, FASLA, FAAR, partner of OLIN in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Los Angeles, California; Kate Orff, founder of SCAPE Landscape Architecture DPC in New York, New York; and Catherine Marcus Rose, president of the Board of Trustees of the Dallas Museum of Art and inaugural co-chair of the Nasher Sculpture Prize in 2016, an award that in part inspired the structure of this prize.

The honoree will be chosen in a multi-layered process, including a year-long nomination period followed with selection by a five-person jury comprised of internationally prominent landscape architects, artists, educators, designers, and others. The Prize will be administered by TCLF and overseen by an independent curator. The jury members and curator will be announced in the coming months.