About Lawrence Halprin

One of the world's leading landscape architects and environmental planners, Lawrence Halprin has long been at the forefront of urban design innovation in the United States. His practice comprises a catalogue of leading-edge environmental design in projects ranging from inner urban centers to National Parks, including The Sea Ranch, a residential development on the California coast; Ghirardelli Square, an early model for the reuse of historic buildings in an urban environment; Seattle Freeway Park; Levi Plaza in San Francisco; and The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, a presidential memorial in Washington, D.C. His recent projects include work in Israel on an extension to a Promenade he designed overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem; an enhancement to the FDR memorial in Washington, D.C., a new approach to Yosemite Falls, and the new Lucas Film Campus in the Presidio in San Francisco.

In 2003, Halprin was presented with the 2002 Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2002, he was the first American to receive the Friedrich Ludwig Von Sckell Golden Ring award in Germany. Among his other numerous awards is the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture and the Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement awarded by the American Institute of Architects. He received a presidential appointment to the first National Council on the Arts and also to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, The American Institute of Interior Design, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.