Books

One of the most influential landscape architects in practice today, Laurie Olin has created designs for the Washington Monument grounds and the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., Bryant Park in New York City, Getty Center in Los Angeles, and many other iconic landscapes. More recent projects include the AIA award-winning Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Apple Park in Cupertino, and Simon and Helen Director Park in Portland, Oregon. All of these works were realized under the auspices of OLIN, the firm he cofounded in 1976. Olin is also a prolific writer, and in this volume a selection of his published work has been assembled for the first time. The collection comprises articles, lectures, and essays spanning a wide array of subjects—from horticulture and education to urban history. Olin’s musings on his own creative development, the evolving state of the profession of landscape architecture, and many other topics will interest a range of readers.

As a young man, Olin studied civil engineering at the University of Alaska and earned a degree in architecture from the University of Washington, where Richard Haag stimulated his interest in landscape and the poet Theodore Roethke encouraged his literary skills. Through a long and distinguished career, he has enlivened the field with his humanistic perspectives and his multi-valenced approach to urban design. The author of several books, including, most recently, France Sketchbooks: The Travel Sketchbooks of Artists and Designers (2020) and Be Seated (2018), Olin is among the profession’s most influential voices. A Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Society of Landscape Architects, he is a recipient of the 1998 Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the 2011 American Society of Landscape Architects Medal. In 2012 Olin received the National Medal of Arts—the highest lifetime achievement award given to an artist by the President of the United States.