Honor Award
Landslide: 2004-2010 The First Six Years
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, Washington, D. C.
Close Me!The web feature (Landslide 2008 pictured) is designed to represent the selected sites within a large thematic context. It is user friendly and provides information for a wide ranging audience of students, professionals, and enthusiasts.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 1 of 15
Close Me!The fully illustrated Web feature (Landslide 2008, Heritage Plaza pictured) provides the history (including designer biography) and threat at each site and ways to become involved.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 2 of 15
Close Me!Signboard exhibits (Landslide 2007 pictured) included the history, threat, and, significantly, ways for people to get involved on behalf of the Landslide sites.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 3 of 15
Close Me!Signboard exhibits (Landslide 2008 pictured) include the history, threat, and significantly, ways for people to get involved on behalf of the Landslide sites.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 4 of 15
Close Me!More than 15,000 Landslide: Every Tree Tells a Story (2010) calendars, produced with support from The Dave Tree Expert Company along with American Photo magazine, American Forests, and Garden Design magazine, have been distributed nationwide.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 5 of 15
Close Me!Rack cards are compact an efficient ways to deliver the Landslide message. They are produced each year and distributed at Landslide exhibition venues and Landslide sites, along with conferences, lectures and the ASLA Annual Meeting.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 6 of 15
Close Me!George Eastman House Museum of International Photography and Film, Rochester, NY curated and premiered Landslide 2008: Marvels of Modernism travelling exhibit of photography. The gallery guide was distributed at Eastman (16,000+ visitors), The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA (17,000+ visitors).
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 7 of 15
Close Me!George Eastman House Museum of International Photography and Film, Rochester, NY curated and premiered Landslide 2007: Heroes of Horticulture traveling exhibit of photography. The accompanying gallery guide was distributed at Eastman (16,000+ visitors) and at subsequent venues nationally.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 8 of 15
Close Me!Garden Design, Landslide Presenting Sponsor for six consecutive years, ran a six-page Special Feature Article highlighting the history and threat of each of the 2006 Landslide selections: Spotlight on the Garden (distribution 250,000+).
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 9 of 15
Close Me!The Garden Design feature story about spotlight on the Garden (2006) helped raise awareness of the significance of each site by highlighting their individual histories.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 10 of 15
Close Me!American Photo magazine curated and commissioned 12 award-winning photographers to capture the selected Every Tree Tells a Story (2010) sites for a 12-page spread in the November 2010 issue (distribution 20,000+).
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 11 of 15
Close Me!The American Photo Every Tree Tells a Story (2010) feature highlighted the history and threat for each selected site and included stunning imagery of the often unnoticed trees.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 12 of 15
Close Me!The Landslide call for nominations (Landslide 2008 pictured) appears in American Photo, Garden Design, the American Gardener, and Landscape Architecture as well as dozens of professional and enthusiast blogs and newsletters, assuring a wide and diverse audience.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 13 of 15
Close Me!The Marvels of Modernism (2008) signboard exhibit was viewed at more than a dozen locations nationwide, including universities, museum, and Design Within Reach studios.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 14 of 15
Close Me!In excess of 5,000 people viewed the Every Tree Tells a story (2010) Photography Exhibit, which tours nationally through 2012, at its premier venue, Aljira Center for contemporary Art in Newark, NJ.
Download Hi-Res ImageImage: The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Image 15 of 15
Project Statement
Landslide is an annual thematic list of endangered and at-risk landscapes designed to spark debate, reveal the value of everyday places, and encourage informed community-based stewardship decisions about threatened sites. Lists are thematic to illustrate the presence of similar typologies (e.g. Modernism) and landscape features (e.g. trees) around the country. Landslide also elevates visibility of the profession and practitioners, reaching a diverse audience via the Web, traditional print, and through travelling photographic and signboard exhibits.
Project Narrative
—2011 Professional Awards Jury
Our organization launched Landslide, an annual thematic list of endangered and at-risk landscapes, in 2004 with the intent of sparking debate, revealing the value of these places and encouraging informed stewardship decisions about their future. Landslide is thematic to illustrate the presence of similar styles or typologies (e.g. Modernism), landscape features (e.g. trees), and other commonalities around the country. By extension, Landslide also focuses attention of the profession and its practitioners. Since the target audience is very broad, Landslide’s information is packaged in multiple ways: Web-based, as traveling commissioned photographic exhibits, outdoor signboard exhibits, and traditional print (including exhibit guides, magazines, and calendars). The process begins on the front end with a nationwide call for nominations that annually generates scores of applications. It also includes a way for the public to connect with local advocates working to safeguard these sites. This diversity of outreach materials enables Landslide to reach stewards, educators, enthusiasts; and landscape architecture, planning, architecture, historic preservation professionals; and the general public.
Landslide themes are developed strategically to help tell the story of landscape architecture and design in multiple ways. Themes thus far include: Working Landscapes (2004), Spotlight on the Garden (2006), Heroes of Horticulture (2007), Marvels of Modernism (2008), Shaping the American Landscape (2009), and Every Tree Tells a Story (2010). Through Web features, travelling exhibits and print publications, Landslide has reached over 2 million readers and, in the process, reveals the value of these often forgotten and irreplaceable landscapes. The work of award-winning and world-renowned photographers illustrates the traveling photographic and signboard exhibits. The exhibits have been shown at venues across the country including The US Botanic Garden, Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, Rochester School of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, George Eastman House Museum of International Photography and Film, The Andy Warhol Museum, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, at six Design Within Reach studios, and more than two dozen universities, parks, gardens, historic houses, and other public spaces. In addition, we have partnered with regional ASLA chapters to bring exhibits to university landscape architecture programs including Ball State University and the University of California, Berkeley.
Since its inception, the project has garnered extensive national and regional media coverage including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Seattle Times, and The American Gardener to name a handful. Media partnerships have yielded print runs exceeding 700,000, the Web feature averages 6 million hits annually, and more than 1 million people have viewed the travelling exhibits.
Many of the sites featured in the annual Landslide program have benefited significantly from the attention. While some sites remain at-risk or have been lost, others have been saved. Lawrence Halprin’s Heritage Plaza has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Theodore Osmundson’s Kaiser Roof Garden and Minoru Yamasaki’s Pacific Science Center Courtyard have been renovated, and Dan Kiley’s iconic design for the Miller Garden is now in the care of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
To date, the Landslide initiative has received over $200,000 in public and private support including two grants from the Davey Tree Expert Company. Since its inception, the project has received support from Garden Design, American Photo, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Design Within Reach, Hillman Foundation, Indianapolis Museum of Art, American Forests, The City of Charleston, and our education partner, ASLA.
Project Resources
Lead Designer: Cultural Landscape Foundation
Charles Birnbaum, FASLA
Graphic Designer
Oviatt Media