A LANDSCAPE REDONE (VIA THE DIRT)

This redesign of one-year old public landscape even before it was established leads to many questions, i.e. for who is the designer working: the client or the public?, to what extent did the client understand the design, and to what extent did the Landscape Architect respond to the clients needs – often it seems to me that our self appointed role as public culture arbiters is in conflict with the role we are employed in as designers.

Blair Kamin, architecture critic for The Chicago Tribune, said Chicago has greatly benefited from its recent high-profile landscape architecture commissions, including Lurie Garden in Millennium Park and the plaza at Trump International Hotel and Tower. While Lurie Garden created a “stylized prairie” in the midst of the city, the plaza evoked a “lush riverbank at the base of an enormous steel and glass skyscraper.”