The winner of the Royal Architectural Institute
of Canada’s 2011 Prix du XXe siècle, recipient of the
2012 American Society of Landscape Architects
Medal, and a Companion of the Order of Canada,
Cornelia Hahn Oberlander is not only a national
treasure north of the 49th parallel, but also one of
the greatest landscape architects of the modern era.
A living connection to some of the world’s best-known
architects and most important design movements
of the last century, Oberlander has a career trajectory
that reads like a survey of landscape architecture. From
being taught by Walter Gropius at Harvard, to working
on social housing projects with Louis Kahn and
creating gardens for modernist residences with Arthur
Erickson, she has cut a wide and innovative swathe.
An early proponent of rewilding, community
consultation, pedestrian-friendly accessibility and
creative playgrounds for children, her projects span
the globe from the Canadian embassy in Berlin, to
The New York Times building, and Erickson’s Robson
Square and Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver.
At the age of 96, when many of the sustainable
practices Oberlander espoused for years have become
mainstream, she is still an unstoppable force of nature,
working on several projects and doing advocacy work.
She is currently designing plantings for Shigeru Ban’s
Terrace House in Vancouver (to complement
her original designs at Erickson’s adjacent Evergreen
Building), and a new publicly accessible roof garden
for Moshe Safdie’s Vancouver Public Library.
She is a passionate proponent of environmental
protection and liveable landscapes in urban settings.
‘My passion is to be with nature and introduce people
to it from all levels of society,’ says Oberlander over tea
in her 1970 Vancouver post-and-beam home, designed
with architect Barry Downs to virtually loat (thanks
to strong concrete pillars) over a ravine. ‘I believe in
the therapeutic efects of greenery on the human soul,’
she says. She and her husband won the large lot in the
University of British Columbia Endowment Lands when
the university held a contest for the best design that
would tread most lightly on the semi-wild forested area.
Oberlander knew from the age of 11 that she would
be a landscape architect. She grew up in Weimar-era
Berlin, narrowly escaping from the Nazis. When her »Natural
wonder
Canadian landscape architect
Cornelia Hahn Oberlander on why
it should be easier to be green
PHOTOGRAPHY: YOSHIHIRO MAKINO WRITER: HADANI DITMARSCORNELIA HAHN OBERLANDER,
SITTING ON A HARRY BERTOIA
‘DIAMOND’ CHAIR IN HER
VANCOUVER HOME, LOCATED
IN THE UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT
LANDS, A SEMI-FORESTED
AREA WEST OF THE CITY128 ∑