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
“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
… Read moreGardens 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
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
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
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
Luminous beings are we… —Yoda in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, 1980
We don’t know if the renowned landscape architect Lawrence Halprin (1916–2009) was a Star Wars fan, but we can say with some certainty that … Read more
San Francisco, California – Thursday, January 21, 2016 – The California Historical Society opens The 1960s Revisited: A 50th Anniversary Celebration with the San Francisco premiere of its new exhibition, Experiments in Environment: The Halprin Workshops, 1966–1971… Read more
In 1973 Levi Strauss & Co. left its cozy quarters at 98 Battery Street in San Francisco for the bold, upright world of the new Embarcadero Center, a series of four skyscrapers located near the city’s waterfront. Within a few … Read more
In conjunction with our exhibition, Experiments in Environment: The Halprin Workshops, 1966–1971, we present an engaging public program with staff from several local architecture firms and nonprofits. They will discuss key projects, programs, and moments where public engagement and … Read more
