Sunday, May 06, 2007

Lawrence Halprin

Lawrence Halprin, born in 1916 and presumably now 90, made his mark as a landscape and urbanscape architect, designing for such spaces as Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. He is a traveler who records his observations visually and verbally in a pleasing combination. I first learned about him through his Notebooks: 1959-1971. Like many innovators, he is hard to categorize neatly. Best know for his urban designs, his notebooks demonstrate his interest in a variety of natural and manmade phenomena. His wife Anna is a dancer/choreographer, and he apparently has spent a lot of time exploring connections between his architectural perspectives and her craft. In my travels, I'd like to learn to slow down and take the time that it must require to do observational sketches and notations like this one from a town in Norway (click on it for a closeup):




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