City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ix This project was first inspired by a seminar I took with John Dixon Hunt and Emily Cooperman in the University of Pennsylvania’s Architectural Archives, and I am grateful for this initial exposure to the infinite richness of the Lawrence Halprin Collection. With John Dixon Hunt’s encouragement and rigorous feedback, the seeds of this project grew into a doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania. John Dixon Hunt is my model for disciplined and brilliant scholarship, and I aspire to produce works that exhibit the integrity he embodies as a scholar. My dissertation committee (John Dixon Hunt, Randy Mason, Emily Cooperman, and David Leatherbarrow) played a central role in the project’s evolution from thesis to book. Randy Mason has remained a consistent advisor, mentor, champion, and friend and has contributed to the book and my academic development in too many ways to list; for this and for his unwavering confidence in my work, I am deeply indebted to him. David Leatherbarrow’s encouragement, support, and generous response to multitudinous solicitations for advice have persisted throughout the years, and I owe him endless thanks for all he has done to ensure my success as a scholar. I am extremely fortunate to have studied at the university where Lawrence Halprin donated his archive, and I am infinitely grateful for the assistance, feedback, and support of Nancy Thorne and Bill Whitaker at the Architectural Archives. They accommodated acknowledgments x acknowledgments my countless requests, shared new discoveries, and allowed me to nearly take up residence in the collection. As the book is based on the work of Lawrence Halprin and the impact Anna Halprin had on his work, I extend my humblest gratitude to them not only for our conversations but for the immeasurable impact they have had on my scholarly, creative, and personal pursuits. I was blessed to have the opportunity to spend time with Larry before he died, interviewing him and hearing his reflections on his career of more than sixty years. I sincerely thank Anna Halprin for speaking with me and for conducting the movement workshops I participated in on the Dance Deck and as part of her retrospective at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2008. Janice Ross, Anna’s biographer and a dance scholar, provided invaluable feedback, shared resources, and guided me through Anna’s archive at the Museum of Performance and Design. I also thank Larry’s longtime office manager, Dee Mullen, for her availability and generosity throughout the book’s progress, as well as Larry’s colleague and employee Dai Williams, who gave me fascinating insights into office culture and projects. I encountered many helpful individuals while studying Halprin’s public spaces that faced demolitions threats. Susan Kline, historian and preservationist in Fort Worth, kept me abreast of the status of Heritage Park Plaza; her updates on the preservation progress were critical to the section of this book devoted to this special place. Scholar and friend Beth Meyer consistently provided generous feedback and opportunities to enrich my research, and I think of her as a true mentor. John Beardsley, director of Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, granted me the opportunity to work in the Research Collection there as a postdoctoral fellow. This time proved pivotal to the transformation of my dissertation into something much closer to a book manuscript. Urban historian Alison Isenberg generously reviewed the book’s early structure and content and pushed me to consider underlying gender implications of Lawrence Halprin’s work. Landscape architect Laurie Olin, a longtime colleague and friend of Larry, offered guidance and served as a sounding board for the project. He offered me valuable insight into Larry’s idiosyncratic design methodology and output, and, with John acknowledgments xi Beardsley, he served as a reference for the Foundation for Landscape Studies David R. Coffin Grant, which proved extremely beneficial to the book’s production. Inspired by the Halprins’ creative process, I decided to continue at the University of Pennsylvania to acquire my own degree in landscape architecture and pursue a hybrid career in academia and practice. This design education enriched the book’s development tremendously, and I am grateful to Anu Mathur and Dilip da Dunha, who supported and nurtured my work on Halprin and taught me how to see in ways that significantly impacted how I assessed Halprin’s creative process, as well as shaped me as a landscape architect. Jim...