Lawrence Halprin: The Choreography of Gardens

Penn Architectural Archives presents a first-ever retrospective, "Lawrence Halprin: The Choreography of Gardens."

Event Date: November 16, 2007 February 29, 2008

Hours: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Description: Internationally known for a remarkable series of public spaces in San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC, the American environmental designer, Lawrence Halprin (b.1916) has designed nearly 400 private gardens over his 60 years of practice. From modest designs for postwar tract houses to the grand estates of his most active patrons, the Haas family (founders of Levi Strauss & Co.), this body of work provided a perfect laboratory to explore and develop themes central to his larger public work. To celebrate this legacy, the Architectural Archives presents a first-ever retrospective, "Lawrence Halprin: The Choreography of Gardens." Drawn from the Archives' extensive collection of Halprin's work, the exhibition features over 60 objects, including sketches, photographs, and period publications to vividly demonstrate Halprin's influence on the postwar landscape. With his wife, Anna Halprin-a seminal figure in the world of dance, Halprin explored the "scoring" of bodily movement and sensory stimulation through his designs, perfecting the process within the relatively uncomplicated conditions of the
private residence. To Halprin, the garden serves as "a framework for movement activities," where sequence and transition, paths, views, textures and materials, spatial definition and changes in level all determined the type, rhythm and speed of movement. In effect, as Halprin wrote in 1949, the garden would take on "the fine sense of a dance."

Location:
Architectural Archives/Kroiz Gallery
220 South 34th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104