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Oberlander Prize winner Julie Bargmann on how she got her grimy informal title

2022-06-02T12:47:00-04:00

I am obsessed with resourcefulness. Maybe it’s because I’m from a big family. So when construction business as usual sends debris off to Maine because landfills are closed in Massachusetts, I call that out. I still can’t stand the word “sustainability” — it’s just common sensibility. I’m especially in love with concrete. One person sees it as debris. I see this wonderful patina. I picture who stood on that, I see the work on that surface and think, how beautiful is that?

Bargmann cited Robert Smithson and Eva Hesse as influences and pointed to a road trip as an early turning point in her career, saying that afterward she “launched into a holistic approach to my work.”

The University of Virginia School of Architecture professor and D.I.R.T. (Dump It Right There) Studio founder described her reaction to winning the Oberlander Prize in October, defending its namesake as a paragon of the same causes she herself has pursued within the world of landscape architecture and academia.

“The prize has really made me feel proud, pretty profoundly,” Bargmann told the Times for its new Visionaries series. “It kind of said, ‘Please do this.’ I think the jury did a pretty amazing job looking not necessarily at the number of built works but the impact that someone’s work has had, also in design education, and how willing someone is to take risks. Cornelia Oberlander was a pioneer. She was a risk-taker. It doesn’t happen enough in our discipline.”

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Prolific landscape architect Julie Bargmann wins inaugural Oberlander Prize

2021-10-14T13:54:00-04:00

Pioneering landscape architect Julie Bargmann has been announced as the inaugural winner of the newly-formed Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize.

Known for her work in regenerative landscapes, the University of Virginia faculty member now has the honor of being named as the first-ever recipient of the Prize, which includes a $100,000 cash award.

The award celebrates landscape architects working at the intersection of design and social justice causes. Critic Paul Goldberger said it was about the “importance of the public realm” at a 2019 keynote address announcing the prize, adding that, in his view, attempting to improve public building itself constitutes “a testament to belief in the social good.”

Introducing Julie Bargmann, the 2021 Oberlander Prize Laureate. Video via The Cultural Landscape Foundation on YouTube.

Bargmann has been a leader in urban reclamation projects since founding her D.I.R.T. (Dump It Right There) Studio in Minnesota in 1992....

Educator and historian John Beardsley selected to curate inaugural Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize

2020-02-11T13:06:00-05:00

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has named arts curator and landscape educator John Beardsley as the inaugural curator for the forthcoming Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize.

The prize, which is set to be awarded for the first time in 2021 and will come with a $100,000 cash award as well as the resources for conducting two years' worth of "public engagement activities," was launched in 2019 by TCLF.

The prize is named after Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, a designer of dozens of widely acclaimed works, including the birch tree-filled 4,900-square-foot lobby garden located at the base of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop-designed New York Times Building in Manhattan.

Previously on Archinect: "Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize set to launch in 2021." Cornelia Hahn Oberlander is the namesake for a new international landscape architecture prize. Image courtesy of Province of British Colum...

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize set to launch in 2021

2019-10-02T15:00:00-04:00

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has recognized influential Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander as the namesake for a new international landscape architecture prize.

The Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize is set to be awarded for the first time in 2021 and will come with a $100,000 award as well as two years of public engagement activities, according to a TCLF press release.

In a statement announcing the new name for the Oberlander Prize, Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF’s president and CEO, writes, “It was the consensus of the Prize Advisory Committee, which helped shaped the Prize, and TCLF’s Board of Directors that Cornelia Oberlander’s inspiring and trailblazing career in the field of landscape architecture exemplifies the critical values and ideals of the Prize, and that she is someone who embodies the Prize criteria of creativity, courage, and vision.”

During a ceremony announcing the announcement of the prize this week, ...