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we’re going to get started hello everyone and welcome to cornelius chats three times three my name is michael

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magnussen i’m the public program and outreach coordinator at the art gallery of alberta to start this program i would

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like to do a land acknowledgement the aga is in treasury 6 in edmonton the

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traditional lands of a diverse indigenous peoples including the cree blackfoot metis nikola sioux iroquois

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inuit and ojibwe salto anishinabe we acknowledge and extend gratitude to the many first nations metis and inuit whose

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footsteps have marked these lands for generations and who continue to call this place home today

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this event is part of cornelius chats 3×3 three digital chats from three canadian cities part of the public

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program for cornelia hen oberlander genius loci at the art gallery of alberta

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this discussion explores new ways of thinking about the role of landscape architecture in the future of our urban

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environment three by three builds reference from cornea’s childhood where she tended her

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own small three foot by three foot garden of carrots and peas uh before we get started i would like to

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mention that i will be moderating the chat so if you have any questions for our q a please write them in the q a

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function and we will try to answer them at the end if you are are visiting us from facebook land uh

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please use the chat function for your questions okay so this aga live is made possible

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in part through support from the heart and soul fund by epcor i would also like to thank the canada

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council for the arts for their support as well for this program now i will bring on the

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sorry now i will bring on curator of the exhibition emery cavelli to introduce our two speakers

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hello and um nice to be here hello everyone i’m amy calvelli

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and um i’ve been asked to give just a brief little bit about cornelia before we start today um so i thought i would

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start by mentioning that cornelia han overlander had a career spanning seven decades

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she has worked with many architects including uh canadian architects arthur erickson and moshe saftey

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she was the recipient of the order of canada and the highest award from both the american society of landscape

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architects and the international federation of landscape architects this year an international landscape

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prize has been named in her in her name today’s chat is about exploring the depth of cornelia’s work and the

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perspective of those who have collaborated with her we’ll hear about design for the places of care and of

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memory we’ll be here particularly about a hospital and a cemetery first i’ve been asked to give just a

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little bit more about background about cornelia’s work so i will start with four images um that

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really gives us quite a snippet of her of her career this first part of the

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work is the creative play center for expo 67 and uh this project was um

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really about raising awareness for spontaneous play at an international scale um this is the time when cornelia

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started incorporating loose parts building with building materials and loose parts for

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kids to play with there was rocking in a in a small nova scotia doriana stream so

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there were very different activities that were incorporated into this play next slide um is the northwest

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territories legislative building and this was a project that uh was completed in yellowknife in 1995

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and corneli cornelia collaborated with matsutsaki and wright pin matthews and

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worked specifically with eva matsusaki to design the landscape one of the concepts that’s often mentioned from

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this project is invisible mending which is adding native species or grasses and

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restoring the wetlands just piecemeal adding particular native grasses so that it looks almost um as if

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nothing was done next slide is the vancouver public library roof and this project

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that was in the exhibition that is in the exhibition has two parts there’s 1992-95

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uh working with mostly safety architects and in addition at night in 2018. um this project also is with downes

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arsham bowling partners and the two rooftop gardens uh one is private public and one on his private uh

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can be seen today um and is an example of many rooftop gardens that cornelia has done

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and the last slide is um back in 1954 with mill creek public housing and this

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was a project where cornelia worked with associate dan kiley on a public housing

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project it was about 218 units and it was designed uh by louis khan’s

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firm so cornelia one of the things that she focused on with this project was equally allotting

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trees and green spaces to each ground floor unit and she always had attention to that sort of detail with access and

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equity of access so uh now we’re going to talk about where

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where we picked up from where cornelia left off and the conversation uh today is about landscape in the

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service of care from the hospital to the cemetery we’re going to hear about an approach to

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landscape design that considers cognitive and emotional healing and that creates connections to memory through

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design i’ll introduce um our our two speakers that we have today and they will each

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present present a couple of slides as well we will then go into a short q a and i’ll ask a couple of questions to

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start and then we’ll have the q a open for all of your questions as well so i’ll begin with bill pettit who

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received degrees in geography and visual arts from the university of victoria

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followed by a professional degree in architecture in 1987 from the ubc

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the vancouver-based packet studio has combined an interest in art architecture

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and urban infrastructure and has created over 30 years of projects that include public art

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playgrounds plazas cemeteries and memorials public infrastructure lighting street furnishings interiors exhibitions

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stage sets and houses he and his collaborators have been committed to the idea that spaces must

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offer multiple layers of experimental encounter by uncovering their sensorial spatial social real ritualistic and

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environmental potentials in order to contribute positively to the communities they serve

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his projects have been represented internationally the studio has received awards from the canada council and the

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american and canadian societies of landscape architecture the province british columbia and the aibc

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in 2006 under the banner of peckett and rob art and architecture he and stephanie robb represented canada at the

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2006 venice biennial in architecture with their sweater lodge project

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recently the studio is completed two cemetery projects in the u.s concept designs for a suspending lighting system

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for a street in vancouver a series of small urban spaces in vancouver three

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large public art projects in western canada a large memorial community space in calgary

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a current project just west of toronto involves working with the team of biologists hydrologists and landscape

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architects towards the remediation of fish habitat that runs adjacent to the arts center

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bill is a faculty member at the university of british columbia school of architecture and landscape architecture

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since 2000 with the research focus on material culture and urban futures

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here’s a frequent lecture on the built environment and the critical role that public space can play in the development

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of healthy and vibrant cities please welcome bill pecking

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thank you amory and hello everyone i’m um i’m very pleased to be invited to

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speak to you about my uh experiences working with cornelia

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oberlander and how working with her influenced the direction of many

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parts of my life next slide please

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uh cornelia and i have um of her 70 decades of work that ain’t mary referred

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to uh i had the pleasure of working on uh 30 of those years or three decades

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we worked on we worked on four projects together

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and each one of them which

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i encountered at different stages of my life uh provided four fundamental lessons for me and i

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know that this sounds packed and highly structured but uh reflecting on my experience with her um i thought it

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would be a nice way to explain um the role that she played in my thinking and

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um and how uh it influenced uh the direction of many of my projects

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even the ones that we didn’t work on together next please

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my first encounter with cornelia was when i was a fledgling architect in the office of henry kissing partners here in

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vancouver um i just really recently come out of

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architecture school and i was working on the trent university environmental

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sciences building um i heard cornelia before i saw her

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because she burst into the office and announced it to everybody that

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she was so pleased to be here um but that she was going to insist that

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we set the bar very high in terms of the environmental experience the landscape interface of this project

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and i sat in a meeting with her and richard henriquez and a few others and i listened to the incredible synergy that

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she had with richard in conceptualizing the relationship between the landscape and ecology and this

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building uh from that that was my first lesson because i hadn’t really been exposed

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until that point to the kind of amazing robust conversations that people

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from aligned disciplines can have in terms of solving problems

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next please a few years later um i maintained my own

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studio and i was working away on a number of small play and kind of sculptural

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works that were extrapolations from a thesis that i had done that when i graduated from architecture school

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called the museum of sound all of them in some way were meant to elicit a kind of a playful response

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to the person who encountered these objects in miniature environments

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cornelia saw these uh next please

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cornelia saw these and she asked me to collaborate with her on a playground um for the talmutura day school here in

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vancouver um as henry uh discussed cornelia was

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incredibly dedicated to the idea that children have to be nurtured in all their cerebral and haptic ways

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you know to produce a kind of uh healthy society of risk takers um but also just

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the simple joy of play uh being integral to children’s education

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and so um with cornelia i ended up designing um these play tables that would be

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installed in the playground uh next please

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each table um had a kind of a were cast from concrete and had a very

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open-ended um idea of what could happen on them so in a sense they were not directive in in

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in terms of asking the students to to encounter them in a specific way but

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rather they gave structure for a variety of invention um that the students could

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do so there was like a a gridded one that they could play a version of checkers on there were holes that were

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in a grid there was a big indentation of a circle there were two mountain ranges that sand and all kinds of stuff could

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be piled on top of and then there was something that we just got the biggest giggle of called lunchtime fun that was

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an embossing of of two negatives of um of lunches

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next please cornelia also wanted um in the

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playground she was designing was highly topographic by that i mean there were a lot of undulations and she wanted the

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children to be able to not just encounter flat space but also to be um

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encouraged to use um various parts of their bodies in fun and special ways and

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so she asked me to design this bridge element as well out of concrete that had a kind of um

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an impossible curve to it that she thought that the kids would really enjoy encountering a

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more attained version of this was eventually built but uh this is where uh this is where she was headed now at the

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beginning of it uh next please

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uh the resultant tables and environments which included like a cast concrete hat that was pinned to a rock a variety of

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sand play elements and these staples um gave the kids a chance to

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invent games to socialize with each other to challenge their their minds and then through her landscape also the

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body uh next please

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many years later uh actually 17 years later to be honest

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we collaborated again on a cemetery project at mountain view cemetery in vancouver

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in the area you see in this slide which is the red rectangle which was the original jewish

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cemetery for vancouver it’s part of a patchwork of many different cultures who occupy

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this mammoth very very very very large

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municipal cemetery next please

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next slide please thank you this is a cemetery that for a variety of

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reasons has been slowly uh disappearing into the landscape

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and the jewish section which you see in this slide uh was slowly sinking into

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the ground and we were losing a lot of valuable uh

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surface information um grave markers and also the original pathway system that

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was used to divide the landscape next please

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if you looked at this cemetery when we encountered it um you would have thought that it was maybe just

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a third full because there was so much missing information that the grass and the

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the land had started to gobble up next please

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as well uh perimeter hedge was um either actually rather poetically

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starting to eat up the perimeter tombstones as well

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but um in any case cornelia and i and the office that i was a small office i was

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now running uh next please uh started to do uh a number of studies

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on the cemetery oh here’s another slide of the great markers that are disappearing

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into the edge next please

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uh cornelia and my little team uh started to do exploratory excavations

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and what we realized was just lurking below the surface was a whole host of kind of information for example this was

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a curb that defined a pathway at one time next please

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we felt like we used to talk on the phone and we felt like we were on an archaeological dig

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anyways between the two of us we came up with a strategy to slowly peel away very

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carefully uh the top layer of this landscape and what it revealed was a whole network of pathways and family and

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curbing that had family names in it and also uh monuments that had been lost for

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many many years maybe uh several decades next please

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and this is um in the middle of our process this is what we started to understand

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next please

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and looking at old historic photos of the site we realized that um not only was it this part of the cemetery but

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other parts of the cemetery that have the same fate next please

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so once we had excavated and we knew where all the curving was we made maps and

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like i said we used to talk on the phone and pretend that we were archaeologists and

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it was a very exciting process to be sharing with her by the way at this point she was 95 years old i wanted to

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mention that but was as energetic as ever but the interesting thing about cornelia

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next next slide and this is my next lesson my next lesson was that there have to be

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rules cornelia um understood that society spaces ecology

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um all all levels of systems um obeyed us uh

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a kind of rule set um and even though she was also uh an artistic master or

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mistress whatever one says now um she said we have to apply these rules and of course bill you know the

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international charter for the conservation and restoration of monuments and sites that was written in 1964 in venice and we said

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uh no cornelia i don’t i don’t know that please please teach me

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uh next please she said well now that we have our map

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and we know uh what’s missing because many curves were missing um she said uh now we have to

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and brings me to the next slide we have to apply these rules and the restaurant and she cited article nine uh

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which i’ll just read the process of restoration is a highly specialized operation its aim is to preserve and

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reveal the aesthetic and historic value of the monument and is based on respect for the original material and authentic

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documents it must stop at the point where conjecture begins and in this case

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moreover any extra work and this is critical which is indispensable must be distinct from the architectural

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composition and must bear a contemporary stamp the restoration in any case must

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be preceded and followed by an archaeological and historical study of a monument next please

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she said to me um and on the sidelines the committee that had hired us really wanted a very

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historicist restoration which we understood but there were some new elements that were

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being added um and they also wanted those to appear as if they were from 1887.

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um cornelia and i became strong allies in the idea that we had to

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make a distinction between what was an original landscape and or set of built elements

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and what was new and also that we had to allow for improvisation and for poetry

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to emerge from the project and she loved the way that the hedge and the great markers were starting to have this kind

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of dance with one another so we made a pact next please

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the resultant restoration included a new uh entry court where we reconstructed a gate that we could only find in one

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photograph um the language of this that was trying to tread easily between historic the

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historic and the the found next please

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in our new entry court we introduced a number of elements that were clearly distinct from the original cemetery

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that also provided spaces for people to gather in a 21st century way that the

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cemetery originally didn’t really require next please

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and this is what this started to look like next please

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the cornelia really uh because of her rule set and her clear understanding of structure allowed us to become also

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um inventors these were some benches that were attached to the wall that were clearly a

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language that was from now she gave us permission to do that next

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please and to create water catching basins out of bronze

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that were uh incredibly beautiful and related to ritualistic requirements of

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the jewish community next please and this is what the resultant cemetery

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looks like today next please

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this is us at the opening we were very happy next please

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the final project that i i’ve been working on with cornelia is sadly one where she’s no longer with us um

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it’s a cemetery that she designed many decades ago in white rock british columbia as well for a jewish community

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called temple shalom and i’ve been hired or my my little firm

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here has been hired to insert a funeral an open-air funeral pavilion for uh

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for ceremonies to take place a memorial growth to remember uh people who aren’t

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buried here at a a washroom facility and storage next please

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my lesson from cornelia on this is that because this is an exceptional cemetery

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uh she’s the the part of the drawing in the lower half of this image is what she

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originally designed and you can see that the grave sites were not cited on a regularized grid she decided to locate

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them in these fan shaped uh pathways that set up a very very beautiful

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lyrical dance with the forested condition moreover she designed it in such a way

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that she could preserve as many trees as possible and when she spoke to me about this cemetery she said that

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our role um is to set up relationships with nature uh

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where culture and nature are in a beautiful dance with one another

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next please and so our addition will be in the same vein as what cornelia set up

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here are some beautiful images of what the cemetery looks like now you can see the arcane shapes of the

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pathways next please

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this is the final image um what i what i want to leave us with is

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the idea that um how we design spaces um the stories that we tell about them

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the ethics that are behind them environmental and aesthetic goals of them are not static particularly in the realm

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of landscape architecture i should mention i’m not a landscape architect but i have a great affinity for it

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um and that cornelius influence uh in these four projects of working with her

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in this ongoing one have been dealt have given me a framework and an

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affirmation that play is important environmental stewardship is important

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aesthetics are important that all these things are

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wrapped up in a giant bundle together thank you

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thank you bill that was a great great uh presentation of the four projects in the cemeteries and bundling it all up

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together at the end um i’d like to invite jane faraby to to um turn her camera on now

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and um just just a note that when i first started talking with jane what

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the idea behind this discussion is about exploring cornelia’s approach and so

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jane is going to share a bit of that with us jane theraby has been active in the field of

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architecture for 36 years with uh 25 of those pri in private practice

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while the balance have been as the university architect for the university of calgary for almost two decades in

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alberta jane has been actively involved with the alberta association of architects including as president in

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2004 and 2005. since then she has been deeply involved in the development of the national

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registration exam for architectural interns her passion for good design plays out in

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her advocacy work paid and volunteer most recently her work with the group of

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indigenous elders in the shared development of a campus landscape plan has been a highlight

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please welcome jane faraby hello everyone

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and thank you to everyone at aga led by amory

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for inviting me to take part in this conversation um with my talk uh

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we’ll move through some context a description of the work cornelia and i did that wasn’t unrealized

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but nonetheless just as powerful experience a brief background on healing

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landscapes in hospital settings and finally a description more verbal with a

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few images about the alberta children’s hospital work that we did do together the vision

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so for context and uh the first slide please

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undoubtedly cornelia’s belief in the value of creative play her fascination with the role of healing

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spaces in the restoration of people’s spirits and her curiosity about calgary’s

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wind-torn setting see pictures led her to consider the offer of a role

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on the alberta children’s hospital project early in its development next please

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in the late 1990s and early 2000s we were seeing an increased interest in

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healing gardens particularly in hospital settings cornelia was intrigued with the concept

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of a healing landscape in this project the ach project would allow us to

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further explore the concept she so admired from doug reads 1998 wellesley

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massachusetts hospital garden and the san diego more playful

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children’s hospital gardens we amassed article articles on others and planned a trip to

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visit several in support of the research i was newly at keysian architecture

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couldn’t be coaxed to work on the architecture of the recently awarded hospital project but was ecstatic to be asked to work

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with cornelia on the early design of the site as the children’s as the building’s concept began to take shape

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my role was to translate the evolving hospital design to cornelia so that the land and the

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proposed building could be considered together i was the go-between

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i was the mentee and cornelia’s accomplice in this new adventure

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next slide please the site was a large rectangle

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in the very bare and undeveloped university of calgary’s west campus land

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it was tipped slightly to set up a view to the west down the bow river valley

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towards the rocky mountains the architectural team were determined to frame this view with a large expanse of

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glass on the west side of the public area of the hospital next slide please

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the belly of the large of the small person that the plan was beginning to emulate you

29:57

can see the plan of the hospital there with its head and arms and legs and tummy

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next slide please correspondence between us traveled by facts and we talked a lot

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she came to kel to the calgary site so that we could walk it study the wild grasses and take clippings next slide

30:18

please from the knotted trees tied into woven shrubs

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in the soon to be demolished in overgrown university arboretum i sent her sketches describing the

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evolving hospital wings and we pulled plant lists next slide

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from local nurseries we laterally spent days together in vancouver playing with ideas drawings and visiting sites

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the work was captured in my notes today refound 20 years later this past summer in the canadian center for architecture

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cornelia had so many questions and we enjoyed making lists of things to research

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both of curious dispositions we’d compare notes on our findings with every call

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it was vigorous she moved fast and i loved it there was no time to waste

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next slide please her starting point was as many have noted already very thorough research

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collect all that can be found see all that can be visited speak to all those who will be involved

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uncover the story of the place and its hydrology its plant life its

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wildlife its past lives really understand the role that the outside places are going to play in the

31:34

overall design how will they be used how can they support vibrant learning

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how can they support community grieving delight compassion

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her goal thankfully also next please was to instruct

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and i’m one of many lucky enough to have been instructed

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here’s a quote from mark epstein next please in an article he wrote in

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1998 entitled the garden healer quote people relate to plants

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that’s the basis of therapeutic landscape design and horticultural therapy this was published in the in the

32:15

seattle publication one of our many reference points claire cooper marcus’s book healing

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gardens quickly became a resource for us as we as it had been published just a year or two before we began our work a

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professor at berkeley cooper marcus had gone on to write much more on the subject since then

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cornelia had so many questions about the program of the future hospital who would lead them who would lead the

32:41

programs and what would be their greatest needs the importance of programming was well understood by cornelia we sought access

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to teachers to program directors to volunteers to patients to parents

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listening engagement were going to be extremely important to make this landscape rich with learning opportunities

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next slide she also sought the advice of experts and because vancouver general hospital

33:09

burn unit healing garden was under construction at the time we had lunch with dr leonard george the director of

33:16

psychology at bgh dr george spoke to us about the value of

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real engagement with staff and patients which cornelius clearly understood anyhow he also though spoke about the value of

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distraction that is creative distraction to the healing process

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the importance of understanding symbols and aesthetics that have meaning to the most number of patients

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and their families he encouraged the use of a horticultural therapist

33:45

in the design of such spaces next please

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i learned as cornelius spoke about the power of plants of not only their aesthetic

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but also their temporal and their spiritual qualities plants are seasonal

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persistently returning next season and the next season in a healing environment they provide a

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respite to the chaos that comes with illness or trauma

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by way of background then the medieval hospices built into the monasteries for the first western

34:21

restorative gardens places of calm and places of comfort

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through time more hospitals have had gardens in recognition of this value the value of convalescence for body and soul

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of course with 20th century advances in both medical science and building

34:40

construction hospitals have become massive complexes where saving travel distance for medical

34:47

professionals has become more the focus than the nebulous business of healing

34:54

next slide please post world war ii saw horticultural therapy programs advance for work with

35:01

veterans and with the elderly since then we have begun to see

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over the last 20 years design guidelines that have emerged for healthcare gardens

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guidelines that advise on color seasonal plants trees where the leaves

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move pollinator plants plants that have offer sensory stimulation opportunities including

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sound and smell and touch so in vancouver

35:29

a little later in our few month experience we began working on the massive alberta

35:35

children’s hospital site next slide

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um i’m going to go around it from the north east corner which uh is actually

35:47

the emergency department and i’m gonna go counter-clockwise i’ll

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tell you a little about our vision the enclosure of the north gardens was going to be important for privacy and

35:59

security and to manage pathogens that was also required to create quiet and to

36:05

help as a windbreak from our northwest winds enclosed areas would be contrasted with

36:10

open walks next slide please following a winding

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a jeffersonian wall of bread can block the north side would have a string of gardens with a variety of experiences

36:23

along their length the pathways swelling swelling and narrowing as the spaces were encountered

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an important but little-known aspect of this area would be the grieving garden

36:35

made up of smaller spaces with seating and hedges for privacy areas for families to slip into from the

36:43

door of the nearby intensive care areas with their dying child there they would find water

36:50

soft planting seeding and a faux view of the sky

36:56

next please the sculpture garden would be designed tight to the inpatient unit spaces

37:02

drawing views out of building and enticing staff and families to explore

37:08

supporting sight lines to future art engaging the senses

37:13

and marking the change of seasons for those spending long periods of time in the hospital

37:19

the color garden then next place would be planted with a variety of planting paving lighting

37:26

and it would have a screen that would capture snow and ice so that those inside could watch the

37:32

play of light this area would make use of mountain ash trees that sport those bright red

37:38

berries and hawthorne trees that turn color through the seasons

37:44

bird houses would be next slide please birdhouses would be placed near the windows and the benches suspended from

37:51

trees visible to those inside the windows the discovery garden

37:58

facing west would be more active and allow families and staff to watch sunset

38:04

the garden would encourage systematic sensory physical and emotional healing of

38:10

children with gentle terracing to support a child’s climb each day to a new level

38:17

drawing on the children’s creative center at montreal’s expo 67 cornelia

38:22

imagined mounds a tree house a watercourse

38:27

a shipwrecked boat jumping and exploring opportunities and loose pieces next please

38:39

a rest garden with fragrant plants and shaded benching would allow peaceful respite next please

38:47

from the busier parts of the site staff would be screened with climbing vegetation dappled light through aspen

38:54

growth would offer an alternative to the sterility of the inpatient unit rooms

39:00

as far as a massive sweep of land down the west side of the site facing the river valley we talked about a grid of

39:08

aspen trees among the parked cars next please that would continue their linear march

39:14

with crabapple trees making up an orchard to tie together the vast foreground area

39:21

framing the mountain view to the west this would give interest to the bottom of the

39:26

horizon that many would encounter as they looked west out of all of the windows

39:32

distracting from the delivery trucks using the expanse of asheville roadways necessary for loading and receiving

39:39

next please the crab apple orchard would be a wild

39:46

meadow requiring little or no maintenance for the hospital staff

39:52

today next please the landscape around the alberta children’s hospital is more

39:57

traditional using fenced areas a good many fenced areas and lacking the

40:04

remarkable big and small moves that cornelia was imagining thanks please

40:12

although i do believe that she would she would approve of the raised beds for the children to work in in their graduate

40:18

picnic table on the southwest corner sadly we we didn’t develop the ach um

40:26

work beyond the concept phase we were dismissed by the client’s project manager

40:31

but which character who cornelia saw through in a matter of minutes and they lost a war of words with

40:37

the site design was subsequently taken over by friends of the pm with only glimmers of the initial healing

40:42

landscape vision surviving it was heartbreaking but

40:48

next please as susan harrington notes in her books

40:54

introduction cornelia quote has always been very open and recounting

40:59

both her successes and failures and the many stumbling blocks she’s encountered she believes her work is an evolving

41:06

experiment the art of the possible like so many who have spoken about her

41:12

over the last months i was moved in the brief less than a year period of time i worked

41:17

with cornelia i was moved by her rigor the application of her humanity

41:23

her respect for the original ecologies of the site the swing from heroic scale to tiny

41:30

detail her willingness to teach her wicked stride and as susan cohen observed in her

41:37

landscape architecture magazine article lately joy was cornelia’s default mode

41:43

i would agree i would say she cared and she really persisted

41:50

thank you thank you jane that was a heartfelt presentation about cornelia’s work very

41:57

very nice um i would like to just pose a couple of

42:02

questions to both you and bill bill you may want to turn your video back on as well

42:08

and um we will also be taking questions from the q a as michael had mentioned

42:13

but i just i wanted to start and just kind of step back a little bit and think about defining the profession of

42:19

landscape architecture as a whole um you’ve both revealed projects that touch

42:24

upon um elements of landscape architecture that are aren’t always naturally considered to be

42:30

landscape architecture endeavors and so what i’ve been widening out that landscape architecture profession

42:36

cornelia had often written uh and spoken about the role of landscape architecture and how students and those emerging in

42:43

the past process should cast a wider view of the profession and even in 1956

42:49

and and uh from and from then there forward she would write about you know it needs to landscape architecture needs

42:56

to be more than parks and playgrounds and layouts it needs to be a practice that works with architects and engineers

43:02

on shopping centers on housing on roads on schools public buildings

43:08

she would she referred to landscape architecture as working with the living materials of the landscape

43:14

so i’m just curious for you know starting from the both of your vantage points what role did cornelius see for

43:21

landscape architecture in the design process from both of your views

43:28

um do you want me to give it a go bill

43:33

uh do did you say you want me to go first yeah i’ll i’ll take a swing at it and then you can annotate please

43:42

okay uh i thought cornelia had a really um very blo broad perspective it was about

43:51

it was about us humans but it also included um you know included all the the animals

43:58

the living things on the site the the state of the soil the past history

44:04

uh the weather systems i mean there’s there’s so much at play in this

44:10

um in the outside world i guess and depending on context whether it’s city or

44:16

or more rural setting institutional or commercial setting she was just so rigorous in asking

44:22

questions around what the story of the site was and what it could be

44:28

um and and i see a lot of parallels frankly with um the work i’m doing with our

44:33

indigenous relatives now it’s super interesting

44:43

likewise i i think that cornelius

44:49

layer layered understanding of both kind of culture and environment

44:55

uh was really manifest in her work she was very quick to identify really

45:01

what the core problem was in terms of what role she could provide to at least

45:08

to a team that i’ve and in many cases she was an educator

45:13

uh she was a she would provoke discussions and art arguments

45:20

and in a way kind of uh serve as a kind of balancing force

45:26

between uh you know because the act of building is is really a kind of violence on a site

45:35

and the act of city building is a violence on the environment and

45:41

i think um she’s a great example of how landscape

45:46

architecture can operate at so many levels i mean she she did many many

45:51

being a kind of pioneering in uh roof uh garden design and green roof

45:58

systems way back when with robson square and at least here in vancouver and

46:05

the library garden that was finally realized a few years ago and opened to the public

46:12

she experimented with technology uh she was highly dedicated to uh the

46:20

notion of kind of that that there was an ethic around

46:25

building um and and balancing the way in which we conceptualize space to include

46:31

our brothers and sisters in the flora and fauna world um

46:37

and i think to your question about what what are landscape architects i mean

46:43

they work with systems at a scale but time level you know the evolution of

46:51

as as jane mentioned weather um they have to imagine things that don’t yet exist or might not exist for 30

46:58

years because they understand how things will grow and how they will eventually look uh so

47:04

all the hospital descriptions of the hospital gardens that were you know so tied to kind of a

47:11

greater understanding of the long distance and the short distance of programming and um

47:17

and a symbol um i i’ve said to a lot of people recently

47:24

if i was to start again that’s probably where i would have started instead of architecture

47:30

and particularly now with uh challenges we’re all facing i think landscape architecture as a

47:36

profession is just in its nascent stages of serving as a kind of a

47:42

profession of stewardship over over and at the risk of sounding to uh

47:49

to uh megalomaniac in this statement but

47:54

you know it’s a profession that can really help the earth

48:00

heal i think yeah yeah

48:05

i’m i’m going to um throw in another question and there’s a question from from an audience member about

48:12

really asking for the ways that designers can effectively embrace or collaborate with landscape architects to

48:18

achieve more holistic and forward-thinking work like cornelia was was thinking about

48:23

imagining and um i think we could tie this into a question around research um you both

48:28

have mentioned the kind of research uh that cornelia introduced for you and

48:34

also that you were working with on the projects whether it’s the icomo’s standards bill on the um

48:40

cemetery and jane you know even going to the point of hiring a horticulture therapist as

48:47

someone that we would consult in order to think about designs so i’m just curious

48:53

if you have any more that you’d like to elaborate on how her capacity for research on a

48:59

project actually took place what kinds of sources did she pull from in your experience

49:10

would you like to go first on this or would you like me to um you go ahead bill and i’ll follow you

49:22

i i feel that design itself is a form of research

49:28

you don’t always know all the answers or even the questions to ask until you start to really

49:34

start to engage with the design problem or the design it’s not always a problem

49:39

but it’s the design challenge i think she understood that that

49:46

certain things come from certain parts of the brain you know the creative urge is as important as the

49:54

analytical um and so you know in working with her i i always saw her moving back

49:59

and forth between these two kind of things she had a very strong formal and aesthetic uh set of rules as well that

50:06

came from her you know from her history at harvard

50:11

and modernism and formalism um but on the other hand her

50:17

layered understanding of the ecology kind of as kind of kind of knitting back together

50:26

uh ecosystems uh came from another hole source so

50:32

i just imagine her brain in a constant uh back and forth like this with

50:38

between these two very necessary sides uh very necessary

50:43

components of the design process there was an interesting part when you were talking bill about

50:50

which parts would be represented in the 21st century and which parts would remain in the 1800s and how those

50:56

decisions are made and i’m just wondering and talking about some of the standards for historic preservation

51:04

was there a consideration that one understands the rules of what one

51:09

should do and then you understand where you can create contempt where to interlace the

51:15

contemporary in with it um would you say that’s yeah or how did that relationship work

51:22

yeah absolutely uh i mean we were moving in that direction anyways but she armed us

51:27

with the right document uh to march into meetings uh to say you know this is a

51:33

universally held standard um and gave us you know the the backbone um

51:40

to resist some of the suggestions that might have trivialized uh some of the

51:46

design moves if we hadn’t been on top of that so she knew her rules

51:52

but she certainly knew when to break them as well and when to bring in the more lateral

51:57

side of the thought process so jane coming to you with this question

52:03

of research and um also just really thinking about

52:08

how how one works with landscape architecture if you wanted to to add that to the question of research but

52:14

the idea of even considering a horticultural therapist is very intriguing to me i don’t know if you want to go further in that direction or

52:21

something else that you have well working with the landscape architect is

52:28

super interesting to me because i’m my team and i are now responsible at the

52:35

university of calgary for the development of the campus and traditionally we settlers have you

52:40

know sort of airlifted buildings into place and then you know and then identified a meter and a half skirt around the

52:46

perimeter of the building that we give to the landscape architect to do something with and that’s that’s always

52:53

troubled me that that thinking because and and i learned i i’m better able to

52:58

articulate why it accept why it troubles me now that i work

53:03

more tightly with a good many really talented landscape architects who’ve taught who are very instructive and also the

53:10

elders because the first thing we do now at um on our land is we seek permission of the land

53:18

before we start doing anything and really seeking that’s in many ways that’s what cornelia was doing was she

53:23

was asking us to do a deep dive into the research on the story of the land and so

53:30

before we started doing work um so i think the the really healthy um you know

53:35

the view the successful projects are often the ones that are a true partnership between the the built environment that will then

53:42

enclose man woman and child you know and the or animals in some cases and and the land

53:49

itself where everyone else can move freely it’s a true partnership between the two of them

53:54

and we have all learned through this pandemic how important that outside world is to us to our humanity to our

54:02

emotional and physical well-being and and so it’s it’s crazy it’s taken us this long to recognize it some of us

54:09

culturally um so i think the horticultural therapist is is another way of uh is another

54:16

another way of broaching that conversation you know the um bringing forward and bringing

54:22

research bringing evidence that um you know watching those uh trembling aspen leaves go is is you know as good

54:30

as that pill coming out of the next jar i mean it isn’t really but it’s doing something different for you then

54:37

it’s just all so valuable so yeah i think the research is the research is takes different forms with

54:44

cornelia and as bill aptly put it she she worked both sides of the brain and she started

54:50

drawing we started drawing and asking questions and measuring things and collecting lists and talking to people

54:57

all simultaneously and it’s a super dynamic and interesting way to work

55:04

we have about uh five minutes left so if anyone has another question to throw in the q a please do so and i’ll add that

55:11

in um i wanted to add maybe an addendum to this question of research which is

55:17

really thinking about climate studies and climate change and i think it’s something that uh you you often find in the files research

55:24

around um climate conditions and climate studies

55:29

uh jane maybe in particular you talked about the alberta weather in the windswept windswept weather

55:35

is there any relationship to climate studies that you found in working with cornelia

55:43

oh absolutely but i think it was sort of in her bloodstream um you know and i

55:48

look at the gorgeous gardens of the west coast and the um you know that she had the good fortune

55:54

to work in and and some of the healing gardens and so on in california we’re all super all very envious of that

56:01

coming here it’s an altogether different set of ingredients i guess you could say to the

56:07

recipe and she was very um respectful of that

56:13

but she also looked forward i mean the climatic maps that you saw where i put up on the screen once we’d look at those

56:19

for today and look out 20 years and you know try to anticipate the future you look at the past and look

56:25

at the future and see where you could arrive and as you say anticipate

56:31

as only a landscape architect can translate for us anticipate what things will do in the next eight or ten years

56:38

um yeah and seeing that larger ecology also i think you know thinking about how a

56:45

design of um healthcare and care for um victims and you know mourning and

56:51

grieving and all of those things can actually help to heal people more quickly recovery becomes quicker and it

56:58

can lower healthcare costs so and i think that was referenced in what you talked about today but also

57:04

i think she saw that larger picture of what the value of some of these designs could do

57:10

we have two minutes left so i’m going to ask bill just if you would maybe elaborate more on this idea of of

57:17

the aesthetics and uh the relationship to the form or the function of design

57:23

you talked about her going between the left and the right brain very quickly um

57:28

is there anything that that you want to add in terms of uh how she approached

57:34

beauty um or aesthetics in the sense of um what made it important what made it

57:42

uh without getting without getting too caught up in the beauty but why was beauty important to her maybe

57:50

bill i don’t know if you wanted to i think oh well thank you what an honor to have

57:56

jane has something else to do oh jay if you want to jane go ahead no no no

58:04

that’s such a great question um i

58:09

the way cornelia lived and i was fortunate enough i’m i’m very close to her family as well

58:15

and i visited many times uh their house where cornelia’s office always was

58:21

which was perched on the edge of uh ravine right below ubc and it was almost

58:26

a um a framework for lit for the lit for domestic life but also for the

58:32

observation of nature but um and so it was very porous and and

58:39

the giant windows and and things where she could um she and her husband peter and their kids

58:45

could uh take in the outside i think she came from a lineage of

58:50

design um through the bauhaus into harvard uh that um

58:57

it placed a lot of importance on um on the um the beauty of things and the

59:02

abstraction of um the abstraction and the reduction of

59:07

things into their most essential which was kind of one of the tenets of the time

59:12

and i think she carried those things through but working with landscape which is a

59:17

dynamic and seasonal and changing thing it gave her a way to explore that within a whole new realm that wasn’t only about

59:25

the static object but but i think she looked at it as as part and parcel of

59:30

the beauty of things so some of her designs were very structured seemingly structured

59:36

uh but if you were to spend time with them and say four different seasons you would understand that she was playing

59:42

with cycles and change so like like moving paintings

59:53

great well um i’m just looking at the time and i can

59:58

see that it’s three o’clock here or i guess yes it’s three o’clock so i just wanted to say thank you to jane amory

1:00:05

and bill for this lovely conversation it was a truly great way to spend a sunday afternoon also i want to thank everyone

1:00:12

that tuned in whether you’re on live stream or watching facebook

1:00:17

and i’m just gonna invite emory to have the last words

1:00:23

okay um thank you all for attending thank you michael i didn’t know i would say some last words but um

1:00:30

the exhibition is um closing today at the art gallery of alberta it has been

1:00:36

there since uh april so it’s been a really exciting show to have up there it

1:00:41

will be traveling next to winnipeg to the university of manitoba and then on

1:00:46

to ryerson university in toronto uh so we will keep you posted with ways that

1:00:52

you can see the exhibition uh we will be having a couple of uh two more uh

1:00:57

cornelius chats uh as michael mentioned at the beginning and those will coincide with the two exhibitions thank you for

1:01:04

attending and and um bill and jane thank you so much for the great conversation today

1:01:10

thank you michael too yeah well goodbye everyone thank you so much

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