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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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Documentary explores the lives of 4 innovative women in architecture

2020-08-10T12:16:00-04:00

City Dreamers is a Canadian documentary directed by Joseph Hillel that looks at the lives of Phyllis Lambert, Denise Scott Brown, Cornelia Oberlander, and Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, all notable powerhouses in architecture and design who were among some of the first women to rise to prominence within the male dominated industry of the time.

Founding and creating the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal is probably one of Phyllis Lambert's greatest feats. Apart from working with the likes of Mies van der Rohe and receiving honorary degrees from roughly 26 universities, Lambert has also built a commendable career as a philanthropist.

Denise Scott Brown's work along with her husband, Robert Venturi is often regarded as some of the most influential amongst twentieth century architectural discourse. Learning from Las Vegas is a favorite. But, perhaps even more notably, Scott Brown grew to become a powerful advocate for Women in Architecture and continues to be a symbol for equality...

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...