BSLA Fieldbook BSLA 2015 Spring Fieldbook | Page 47

After the first five years of working alone,
I began to get larger jobs and decided to
rent a small office in Harvard Square and
began to hire other landscape architects.
One of these was an Iranian woman,
Zari Santner. Zari knew about some of
the development happening in Teheran,
including a big housing project led by an
American architect. With encouragement
from Zari I went to Teheran to meet
with the development team. We began
to develop plans for outdoor areas and
walkways throughout the development.
In particular I wanted some shade along
the walkways. Workers who came to
their jobs at the development had to
come by bus which stopped to let them
off at the bottom of a steep hill. There
were no tree nurseries near Teheran so
the Iranians got me a car and driver to
take me over the Elbruz Mountains to
the Caspian Sea where there were lots of
plant nurseries. The nurseryman didn’t
speak English and I didn’t speak Farsi but
we both knew the Latin names of plants,
so no problem!
My first big American job began in 1982:
the John Marshall Park in Washington,
DC, right on Pennsylvania Avenue near
the nation’s capital. I remember flying
to Washington for meetings when I was
the only woman on the plane. My design
for the park commemorating the great
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States had to ascend several feet
and still be accessible to the handicapped
(before ADA). I designed the park with
three levels and ramps connecting them.
I put a statue of Marshall seated at the
upper level and an open terrace at the
bottom where people gather to watch
parades. Also in our research about the
site we found that this was the site of the
first public water supply for the City of
Washington DC, so I put two fountains in
the upper terrace to celebrate this history.

In 1984, I was invited to Taiwan to teach about
environmental preservation. When large
numbers of mainland Chinese came to Taiwan,
a lot of the natural landscape was lost, bringing
the need for preservation to the forefront.
They were looking for someone to come
and teach in the architecture schools about
designing to preserve the natural environment.
My classmate at Harvard, Nancy Maio,
recommended that I go teach about landscape
preservation and I did. The students were very
bright and interested. I spent a month there
enjoying the students and the beautiful scenery
As I enjoyed visiting Taiwan I was thinking
of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park in
Cambridge, Massachusetts which I was going
to begin designing as soon as I got home.
The Kennedy Park site is right beside the
Charles River Reservation conceived of by
the landscape architect, Charles Eliot, in 1891.
The site was sloped toward the north away
from the river to the south. We calculated how
much fill would be needed to tilt the Park to
the south and unite it with the Charles River
reservation. The President’s daughter, Caroline
Kennedy, came to the meetings about the Park
and contributed her insights. The Park has an
allee of trees which lead visitors to a fountain
where water flows over granite slabs on which
are carved speeches by President Kennedy and
a plaque is included in Braille so blind visitors
can read the words of the President.
Today I am working on a Memorial Park for the
Cape Verde Islands immigrants who arrived in
Rhode Island over 100 years ago. In my design,
I have placed a small amphitheater focused on
the Providence, RI harbor and the ocean beyond
facing the route of the Cape Verdeans. We will
have the American and the Cape Verdean flags,
maps of the Cape Verdean Islands and the coast
line of Rhode Island, plus the family names.

Started Out New Jersey
Education Wellesley College; MLA, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Now CRJA
Boston Society of Landscape Architects Fieldbook

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