Michael Van Valkenburgh - Plain Trees to Plane Trees and Beyond

MHG Meetings

Sponsored By: Metro Hort Group

Michael Van Valkenburgh

Plain Trees to Plane Trees – and Beyond

A personal horticultural odyssey from a childhood on a dairy farm in Greene County to the Cornell horticulture department to designing parks and gardens today

Michael Van Valkenburgh recalls the intersection of horticulture and landscape architecture at Cornell University, where he received his first degree, and how the atmosphere there influenced the horticultural and ecological foundation of his work on current and ongoing projects. He presents a series of snapshot summaries of some of his New York region projects, including his ongoing work at Princeton, Vassar, and Harvard, as well as recent and as of yet unbuilt projects at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and in St. Louis, MO.

Michael Van Valkenburgh is the principal of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., Landscape Architects. Throughout his career, he has championed the experiential possibilities of the living landscape and the potential for landscape methodologies to influence urban development in ways that promote social and environmental sustainability. He is also the Charles Eliot Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.