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Oberlander Prize winner Julie Bargmann's work and life featured in 'Pioneers of American Landscape Design' series

2023-05-30T18:06:00-04:00

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has just released the latest episode of their ongoing Pioneers of American Landscape Design series featuring an oral history and overview of the work of the 2021 inaugural Oberlander Prize winner Julie Bargmann.

The D.I.R.T. founder and University of Virginia professor emerita profiles her career in landscape architecture beginning with her graduation from the Harvard GSD in 1987. From there, Bargmann went on to become a Fellow in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome before establishing the studio in Minnesota in 1992. Bargmann has since gone on to win the prestigious Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award and is elsewhere recognized as the "Queen of Slag" for her work outside of academia, which focuses heavily on post-industrial sites and the public realm.

The Turtle Creek Water Works in Dallas, Texas. Photo: © Charles A. Birnbaum, courtesy of The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Adriaan Geuze and Michael Van Valkenburgh are also ...

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....