David R. Coffin Publication Grant for 2008

The Foundation for Landscape Studies is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2008 David R. Coffin Publication Grant, which is given for the purpose of research and publication of a book that advances scholarship in the field of garden history and landscape studies. The recipients are listed in alphabetical order.

Dorothée Imbert
Between Garden and City: Landscape Modernism and Jean Canneel-Claes

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

This book-in-progress chronicles the work and life of Belgian landscape architect Jean Canneel-Claes (1909-1989), a somewhat overlooked but significant figure for the early period of European modernism. Imbert restores Canneel-Claes as a major figure in the transformation of landscape architecture into a modern discipline. She presents his own transition from garden design to urban planning as exemplifying the development of the field itself. In tracing the trajectory of his work, she opens new possibilities for considering modernism’s approach to gardens and nature, as well as landscape design’s relationship to modern architecture and urban design.

Thaisa Way
Unbounded Practices: Women, Landscape Architecture, and Early Twentieth Century Design

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

This book-in-progress describes landscape design in the United States starting in 1893, the year of Olmsted’s landscape for the Chicago World’s Fair and the publication of Marianna Van Renssalaer’s book, Art out of Doors. Both achievements were significant landmarks in the establishment of the practice as a profession. Two constellations of women frame the narrative, the first composed of six successful women (Beatrix Jones Farrand, Marian Cruger Coffin, Annette Hoyt Flanders, Ellen Biddle Shipman, Martha Brookes Hutcheson, and Marjorie Sewell Cautley) whose practices are considered within the context of a second constellation embracing hundreds of women who practiced across the nation during the early twentieth century. The narrative draws to a temporal close in mid-century when the practice and profession moved into a new phase of growth and maturation. Way’s narrative weaves these stories together: the history of the profession and the women who helped shape it.