About this talk

Running time: 35 minutes

Reared in Alaska, Laurie Olin studied architecture at the University of Washington in Seattle. He added urban design and landscape when he started to practice in Philadelphia with Robert Hanna. Most of his work has been in the public sector. Olin has also been active in teaching and lecturing and is a Professor in the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Distrusting the idea of a personal style, he discusses the limitations to what landscape architects can achieve but on the positive side, where they get their ideas from. He aims to present the most natural things in the most unnatural way. Among his many completed landscape projects are the open spaces at Canary Wharf in London and the new Esplanade for Battery Park City in New York which has added breathing space to the area west of the World Trade Center.

Recorded against background sounds, in the Furness Library of the Graduate School of Fine Arts, at the University of Pennsylvania.

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