LAWRENCE

HALPRIN
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

SUBMITTED BY:
SUBMIT TED TO: S AYA L I S H A R M A
AR. MANISH CHITRANSHI ROHAN KASHIKAR
A S S T. P R O F. P R I YA M W A D A P A N D E Y
ASAP - AUMP B. A RCH V I S EM
A MITY U NIVERSITY MP
LIFE HISTORY
• Born, July 1, 1916, in NewYork City and raised in Brooklyn.

• He invested three of his teenage years in Israel on a kibbutz (communal settlement or farm) near what is
today the Israeli port city of Haifa

• He earned a B.A. at Cornell University; and he was granted a M.A. at the University of Wisconsin.

• He then earned a second bachelor’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where his
professors included architects Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. • A visit to Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s
studio in Wisconsin, had sparked Halprin’s initial interest in being a designer.

• In 1944, Halprin was commissioned in the United States Navy as a Lieutenant (junior grade).

• He was assigned to the destroyer USS Morris in the Pacific which was struck by a kamikaze attack.

• After surviving the destruction of the Morris, Halprin was sent to San Francisco on leave.

• Beginning his career in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, in 1949, Halprin often collaborated with a
local circle of modernist architects on relatively modest projects.
ARCHITECTURAL STYLES
• Halprin's projects,
demonstrate his vision of
the garden or open space
as a stage.

• Halprin recognized that

"the garden in your own
immediate neighborhood,
preferably at your own SEATTLE FREEWAY PARK FERRIS HOUSE LANDSCAPE MANHATTAN SQUARE PARK
doorstep, is the most
significant garden.”

• The interplay of
perspectives informed
projects which
encompassed urban parks,
plazas, commercial and
FDRMEMORIAL IRA KELLER FOUNTAIN LEVI’S PLAZA
cultural centers and other
places of congregation.
MANHATTAN SQUARE PARK
- Rochester, New York
• This five-acre site in the East End district of downtown Manhattan when the city cleared 60 acres for urban renewal.
Designed by Lawrence Halprin in 1971-1972, an open space surrounded by largely unrealized high-density development.

• One of Halprin’s most multi-purpose facilities, the park opened in 1974, a reprieve from congested urban living.

• Vehicular and pedestrian traffic were separated via Park Drive (now Manhattan Square) and a sky-lit underpass below
Chestnut Street.

• Halprin’s spatial organization alludes to the historic city street grid, 45 degrees off the current city layout.

• The park was divided into six zones, including a children’s play area with a wading pool, a hockey rink that converted to
tennis and basketball courts, a large meadow for athletic events, a bermed garden shaded by a grove of trees, and a
wide, tree-shaded promenade.
MANHATTAN SQUARE PARK
- Rochester, New York
• The focal point is a sunken, concrete plaza containing a 2,000-seat amphitheatre with a restaurant, and a waterfall
fountain.

• A steel scaffold-like frame with viewing platforms and an observation tower allows visitors to experience the plaza from
a different perspective.

• The park’s complex, multi-level spaces were realized through concrete steps and retaining walls arranged in angular
patterns.

• Today the amphitheatre plaza with its steel frame, garden and promenade remain largely intact. The children’s play area
was updated in the 1990s and the skating rink was redesigned to double as a reflecting pool in 2008.
MANHATTAN SQUARE PARK
- Rochester, New York
IRA KELLER FOUNTAIN- Portland, Oregon
• A product of urban renewal, this massive land
clearing project was realized with $12 million in
federal funds targeted for the South Auditorium
District.

• This park in Portland’s “city within a city” was not

originally part of the Open-Space Sequence
planned by Lawrence Halprin and Associates.

• Working with Angela Danadjieva, Halprin

designed a park that solved the site’s complex
grades with a powerful urban waterfall.
Collectively, the Forecourt along with the Source
Fountain, Lovejoy Fountain Plaza, and
Pettygrove Park were meant to evoke a
metaphorical watershed
IRA KELLER FOUNTAIN- Portland, Oregon
• Halprin saw these plaza spaces as theatre sets for choreographing human movement
– and unlike being fountains solely for viewing, these were designed for interaction.

• The Portland Open Space Sequence was listed in the National Register of Historic
Places in March 2013.

• The central feature of the park is the concrete water fountain. Keller Fountain is often
noted as a memorable feature of the public landscape in downtown Portland, and in
1999 was awarded a medallion from the American Society of Landscape Architects.

• The park, which is known for its accessibility for allowing visitors to stand at the top of
the waterfall, is designed according to construction code to prevent children or adults
from falling down the waterfall; the top of the falls are actually 36 inches pockets of
water, acting as a safety wall.
IRA KELLER FOUNTAIN
- Portland, Oregon
AWARDS
• 1964: AIA Medal for Allied professionals
• 1969: Elected fellow in the American Society of
Landscape Architects
• 1970 Elected honorary fellow of the Institute of
Interior Design
• 1976 American Society of Landscape Architects
Medal
• 1987 Elected into the National Academy of
Design
• 2002 National Medal of Arts
• 2002 Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell Golden Ring
• 2003 ASLA Design Medal
• 2005 Michaelangelo Award

• 1979 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in

Architecture
• 1979 Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement
awarded by the AIA