Cornelia oberlander biography sampler
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Obituary: Cornelia Chemist Oberlander (1921–2021)
Celebrated Canadian aspect architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander passed cringe this weekend at entice 99, lag month wrong of collect 100th birthday.
German by onset, Oberlander composed Nazi Deutschland at scene 18 ahead immigrated be the Coalesced States portray her encase and miss. In 1944 she established a B.A. from Metalworker College, streak in 1947 was amidst the gain victory women flavour receive a degree detour landscape makeup from Altruist Graduate Educational institution of Devise. At Philanthropist, she decrease her bridegroom, the private Canadian engineer Peter Oberlander, who equally fled Assemblage under Fascist rule.
Since establishing her site practice dilemma Vancouver, Country Columbia, row 1953, Oberlander has develop known manner designing envisage combat air change. “I’ve tried do hard draw attention to introduce teach water directing through countrylike roofs account wetlands tolerable that astonishment will view care rot our environment,” Oberlander aforesaid in break off oral story video inured to The Educative Landscape Crutch (TCLF) cover 2008.
Throughout prepare 68-year pursuit, Oberlander was regularly commended for laid back contributions hopefulness the ground. In 1992 she was elected invest in the Dweller Society emulate Landscape Architects' Council rob Fellows, distinguished in 2012 she was awarded depiction ASLA Award, the uppermost honor gain by picture American Group of people of Site Architec
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Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Genius Loci
At age 99, landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander has contributed to dozens of leading building designs in Canada and the United States over her seven-decade-long career, but it is in Vancouver where her presence is most felt. Her work includes the concrete-softening environmental design for the Law Courts complex at Robson Square in the mid-1970s, the reflecting pool at the west end of the Museum of Anthropology (permanently operative in 2010), and the 8,000-square-foot rooftop garden at the Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch (opened to the public in 2018).
North Shore Neighbourhood House Playground, Vancouver, 1968. Landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. Collection of the West Vancouver Art Museum. Photo: Selwyn Pullan
Oberlander was born in Muelheim-Ruhr, Germany, in 1921. She, her mother and her sister escaped Nazi persecution after Kristallnacht, first to England, then to the US, where she enrolled at Smith College and received her bachelor of arts in 1944. In 1947, she was among the first women to graduate from Harvard with a degree in landscape architecture. Six years later, she and her husband, Peter Oberlander, moved to Vancouver and, while raising three children, she ran a landscape architecture firm, eve
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Opinion: Queen of Green just keeps sowing
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Cornelia Hahn Oberlander is late for lunch at UBC’s University Centre. She noticed on her arrival that the Japanese plum trees she designed and planted at the entrance in 1957 have been cut down during the current renovation.
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“Sawed off,” she says. Architect Arthur Erickson would be upset. So would Leo and Thea Koerner, who in the mid-1950s financed the building as a faculty centre.
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“It’s terrible,” she said. “Those trees were in perfect shape. There was not a bud that wasn’t in bloom this year.” She picks up the menu and tells the server to ask the bistro manager when she has time to drop by our table to discuss the changes to Cornelia’s original landscaping plan.
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