James Corner

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James Corner is an internationally known landscape designer and theorist with numerous works exploring the meaning and depth of contemporary landscape architecture. His focus is on “developing innovative approaches toward landscape architectural design and urbanism” and he is recognized for his modern designs and theories. Designs of notable significance are those of Fresh Kills Park on Staten Island and the High Line design in New York.

1 Education and Profession
2 Awards
3 Works
4 Books
5 References

[edit] Education and Profession

Born in 1961, Corner received his BA at Manchester Metropolitan University with first class honors in 1983 and his MLA and Urban Design Certificate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986. Corner has been a professor at University of Pennsylvania since his appointment in 1989 teaching courses in media and theory as well as design studios, and was elected as Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department in 2000. He also served as a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 1998 and at the KTH School of Architecture in Stockholm, Sweden in 1999. Corner is principal of Field Operations, which is a landscape, architectural and urban design practice in Philadelphia and New York City.

[edit] Awards

Corner has been the recipient of numerous awards, many of them being awarded for the first time to a landscape architect. He received the G. Holmes Perkins Award in 1996 for “distinguished and innovative teachings and methods of instruction in design”. In 1997, he was the first recipient of the Jens Jensen Professorship in Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture and in 2000 he was the second landscape architect, after Achva Benzinberg Stein, to be chosen for theDaimlerChrysler Award, which recognizes and promotes innovative design.

[edit] Works

In one of his notable works, Corner collaborated with Alex McLean to write “Taking Measures Across the American Landscape” which takes one on a journey to see what type of landscapes made up America. Essays and map drawings by Corner and aerial photos taken by McLean make this a very compelling book of the landscape of different reasons and the possibilities they hold. Corner's other well known work, Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture offers insight on how contemporary landscapes are "designed, constructed and culturally valued".

Corner's designs have been bring back the open spaces of the natural wild with a rough, natural, and ecologically sound approach; this could be compared to the works of Frederick Law Olmstead except more unbridled. The High Line is a 1.5-mile-long length of abandoned railroad viaduct that runs from the Meatpacking district to Hell's Kitchen and the proposed design by Field Operations is meant to transform it into a 1.5-mile-long park. Corner envisioned "fantastic, mixed perennial landscape" interspersed by "event spaces". Although it won't be opened until 2008, it has already made an impact on the surrounding blocks with the addition of 27 new residential towers, hotels, offices and museums.

Field Operations also won the international design competition with its design "Lifescape" for the redesign of Fresh Kills Park; located on Staten Island it is the biggest landfill in the country and at 2,200 acres it is one of the largest publics work project in the world. It will also incorporate a World Trade Center memorial since the landfill was temporarily reopened to accommodate the remains of the towers. Fresh Kills Park, although 3 times in size, is reminiscent of Olmstead's massive design for Central Park in terms of all the work that had to be done.

[edit] Books

Taking Measures Across the American Landscape (Yale, 1996), coauthored with Alex MacLean. ISBN 0-300-06566-3 Received the AIA International Book of the Year Award and the ASLA Award of Honor.
Editor of Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Architecture (Princeton, 1999) ISBN 1-56898-179-1 (pbk. : alk. paper), a book focused on the revitalization of landscape architecture as a critical cultural practice.)
Ian McHarg : conversations with students : dwelling in nature / Lynn Margulis, James Corner, and Brian Hawthorne, editors. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, c2006. ISBN 978-1-56898-620-3