Watch online - IFLA 75 - The History and Impact of a Professional Network

Catch up on the recent webinar which was hosted at the Museum of English Rural Life.

The event: This roundtable discussion brought together academic researchers, archivists and practicing landscape architects to discuss why the history of the Federation matters for historical awareness, current policy and practice: what can we learn from it, and how can we use this knowledge to shape our current debates. The roundtable participants represent different approaches to the importance of archiving the Federation’s history, and questions on how to make it available to the public.This roundtable is part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) funded project, IFLA 75: Uncovering Hidden Histories in Landscape Architecture.

Chair:  Imke van Hellemondt

Respondents: Luca Csepely-Knorr and Ulrike Krippner

Roundtable participants:  Guy Baxter, Natalia Budnik, Charles Birnbaum, Hal Moggridge, Tim Waterman and Ursula Wieser-Benedetti

More about the participants:

Imke van Hellemondt is researcher and lecturer in Architectural History at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Research Institute for the Heritage and History of the Cultural Landscape and Urban Environment). She lectures at the Academy of Architecture Amsterdam and is Chief Article Editor for the Journal of Landscape Architecture. Her research focusses on ideas about nature-culture relationships in Dutch landscape design since the nineteenth century. Together with Luca Csepely-Knorr and Ulrike Krippner she is leading the AHRC funded project IFLA 75: Uncovering Hidden Histories.

Luca Csepely-Knorr is Research Chair in Architecture at the Liverpool School of Architecture. Her research focuses on the histories of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design from the late 19th century to the 1970s. Her bi-lingual monograph, ‘Barren Places to Public Spaces: A history of public park design in Budapest 1867-1914’ has brought her a special jury award by the Hungarian Association of Architects at the Landscape Architect of the Year Award in 2017, and is now available open-access both in Hungarian and in English. She is currently leading the AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellowship ‘Women of the Welfare Landscape’, that commemorates the network of women and their collaborators who have had a major impact on shaping the post-war designed landscapes of the British Welfare State. Together with Ulrike Krippner and Imke van Hellemondt she is leading the AHRC funded project IFLA 75: Uncovering Hidden Histories.

Ulrike Krippner is a senior researcher at the Institute of Landscape Architecture at Universität für Bodenkultur BOKU Vienna. She holds a PhD in landscape architecture and teaches landscape history. Her research and writings concentrate on the maturation of landscape architecture in Austria in the 20th century, by looking at individuals as well as studying structure and development of the profession or examining designed landscapes like the WIG Wiener Internationale Gartenschau 1964 and 1974. She has published widely on women in Austrian landscape architecture. She operates the Archive of Austrian Landscape Architecture LArchiv and is currently working on the digitization and presentation of its holdings. Together with Luca Csepely-Knorr and Imke van Hellemondt she is leading the AHRC funded project IFLA 75: Uncovering Hidden Histories.

Tim Waterman is Professor of Landscape Theory and Acting Director of Architecture History and Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. His research addresses imaginaries: moral, political, social, ecological, radical, and utopian. This forms the basis for explorations of power and democracy and their shaping of public space and public life; taste, manners, customs, belief and ritual; and foodways in community and civic life and landscape. He is Chair of the Landscape Research Group (LRG), a Non-Executive Director of the digital arts collective Furtherfield, and an advisor to the Centre for Landscape Democracy of the Landscape and Spatial Planning Institute at NMBU in Norway. He is the author of The Landscape of Utopia: Writings on Everyday Life, Taste, Democracy, and Design and editor of Landscape Citizenships with Ed Wall and Jane Wolff, Landscape and Agency: Critical Essays with Ed Wall, and the Routledge Handbook of Landscape and Food with Joshua Zeunert. His writing has appeared in a variety of journals including the Journal of Architecture, Garden Design Journal, Utopian Studies, and Landscape Architecture Magazine.

Hal Moggridge, Consultant, OBE VMH PPLI FIHORT RIBA AADIP Working in the office of Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe inspired Hal to change professions, from architecture to landscape architecture, and his opportunity came in 1969 when Brenda Colvin asked him to join her as partner – she was in her 70s and he only 33. The success of the public enquiries that often preceded consent for the large industrial landscape projects the practice became renowned for can, in part, be attributed to Hal’s encyclopaedic knowledge of each and every site. To quote Hal himself: “if, under hostile cross examination, it is possible to name the species of a specific tree or remember the condition of a particular gate, then conviction is given to opinions about more strategic matters”. Indeed he fervently believes that a complete empathy with the site lies at the heart of successful landscape design. In the 1970s Hal played a key role in restoring the Capability Brown masterpiece at Blenheim, thus reviving the national interest in Brown and the Georgian natural landscape garden. Hal has never lost his feeling for the importance of views that his rediscovery of Brown inspired, and more recently, his pioneering work defining the spatial character of important urban views in Edinburgh and London has won him international acclaim. Like Brenda before him, Hal was honoured for his unique thinking and work in landscape architecture.

Natalia Budnik worked for Copenhagen-based landscape design office SLA (strategy / urbanity / landscape) between 2014-2019. She is a graduate of the University of Copenhagen and tutor of the Design by Management course at the same university. In Poland, she works with architectural offices to create landscape and plant strategies on various scales. Natalia is interested in projects emphasizing the phenomena of nature and its processes, in a creative way using the potential of plants.

Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, is the president, CEO, and founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). Prior to creating TCLF, 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. Since taking the helm at the foundation in 2008, Birnbaum’s major projects include the web-based initiative What’s Out There (a searchable database of the nation’s designed landscape heritage) and the creation of the first International Prize in Landscape Architecture named for Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. He has authored and edited numerous publications, including: Experiencing Olmsted: The Enduring Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted's North American Landscapes (2022); Shaping the Postwar Landscape, (2018); the Modern Landscapes: Transition and Transformation series (Volumes printed in 2012 and 2014); Shaping the American Landscape (2009); Design with Culture: Claiming America’s Landscape Heritage (2005); Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture (1999) and its follow-up publication, Making Post-War Landscapes Visible (2004); Pioneers of American Landscape Design (2000); and The Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes (1996).

Ursula Wieser Benedetti is a landscape architect and a Japanologist. She has practiced as a landscape architect in France, Austria and Italy and holds a PhD in Landscape History (EHESS, Paris). Her research interests focus on Japan, landscape architecture in Belgium, and the question of limits in the landscape. She currently works at the CIVA in Brussels (https://www.civa.brussels/en), where she curates exhibitions and publications around contemporary landscape architecture and the history of landscape architecture, and organizes the René Pechère literary Prize, distinguishing books of excellence in the realm of landscape architecture. She has directed several publications, including Brussels, Two and a Half Centuries of Public Parks and Gardens (2019).

Guy Baxter has led the archive service at the University of Reading since 2008, achieving UK Accredited status and contributing to several interdisciplinary research projects and developments including the Staging Beckett and Stephen Dwoskin projects. For the latter project he was a finalist in the 2022 Digital Preservation Awards. He convenes the department’s Digital Working Group, leads the sustainability and infrastructure strand of the Digital Humanities Hub, and is a member of the Research Libraries UK working group for the Digital Shift. As well as the impact of the digital on collections and research, Guy’s broad professional and research interests are in copyright and compliance, cross-domain and interdisciplinary working, photograph collections, performing arts and events data (and intangible cultural heritage more broadly), and preservation management.