Lawrence Halprin, Self-Portrait before Leaving Israel, 1998 Courtesy of Anna Halprin

Lawrence Halprin’s 100th birthday

The pioneering landscape architect was born 100 years ago today in New York City. Lawrence Halprin grew up in Brooklyn, and spent three years on a kibbutz in Israel before attending Cornell University, the University of Wisconsin, and Harvard’s Graduate … Read more

Lawrence Halprin, Design for Los Angeles Library Garden, date unknown Lawrence Halprin, A Life Spent Changing Places (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2011)

Visions of Los Angeles: Landscape Architect Lawrence Halprin Transforms a City

 

 

“Great cities are not made by automobiles, freeways and high rises. Basically, they are made by open spaces and the people who use the open spaces.”
—Lawrence Halprin, c. 1987

It started in the 1950s with plans to … Read more

#Onthisday in 1967, the words “Summer of Love” were first used in the San Francisco Chronicle

#‎Onthisday‬ 49 years ago, the words “Summer of Love” first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle carrying the term into the ‘mainstream media’ in San Francisco, California and the country. The article focused on a press conference held the … Read more

Lawrence Halprin, The Irving Levin Garden, San Anselmo, 1951 Courtesy of Fred Levin

A Landscape Planned for Living: Lawrence Halprin’s Levin Family Garden

Gardens were a wonderful testing ground for details and a great learning experience for how things are constructed. When gardens were successful they provided great personal joy and led me to some interesting discoveries and friendships.

—Lawrence Halprin, A Life

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Lawrence Halprin, Self-Portrait before Leaving Israel, 1998 Courtesy of Anna Halprin

Lawrence Halprin: Landscape Architecture in Israel

As a teenager, the land of Israel captivated Lawrence Halprin (1916–2009). In 1929, at 13, he marked the ritual transition into Jewish adulthood and responsibility (bar mitzvah) in Jerusalem (then British-governed Palestine Mandate), where he and his family … Read more

Charles Birnbaum (Photographer), The Sea Ranch, 2008 Courtesy of Charles Birnbaum/The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Living Lightly on the Land: Lawrence Halprin and The Sea Ranch

Today The Sea Ranch on California’s Sonoma coast is known as a rustic community where people live in harmony with their environment. In 2005, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin—who developed The Sea Ranch master plan in the early 1960s—noted that wherever … Read more

Anna Halprin Leading a Women’s Peace Walk on the Rhoda Goldman Promenade, Israel, 2014 Courtesy of Sue Heinemann Anna Halprin (front row, center) leads a peace procession on the Rhoda Goldman Promenade designed by her late husband, the renowned landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. Next to her (our left) is Susie Gelman, daughter of Richard Goldman, who commissioned the promenade.

Anna Halprin: “Jews Are a Dancing People”

Photographer Sue Heinemann remembers traveling to Israel with the postmodern dance legend Anna Halprin in the fall of 2014: “There she completed her trilogy Remembering Lawrence, honoring her late husband, who helped found an early kibbutz and designed several … Read more

Resource guide to the 1960s

Looking for the latest or greatest scholarship and thinking on the 1960s? Here’s a sample of books, films, articles and exhibitions that CHS staff have been reading:

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Video projection inside a geodesic dome created by Obscura Digital, Friday, January 22, 2016 (Adrian Mendoza for the California Historical Society).

The Trips Festival – 50 Year Celebration

On January 22, 2016 the California Historical Society celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Trips Festival with an event at Obscura Digital featuring Trips Festival organizer Stewart Brand. At the event, Trips Festival participants, scholars, historians, artists, musicians and technologists, … Read more

Inside Outside: on the Significance of the Trips Festival

“If I were to tell you that an event of major significance in the history of religion is going to take place in this City of Saint Francis this weekend, you would say, ‘You stayed out of work too long.’ … Read more

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