Landslide: 2004-2010 The First Six Years

Landslide is an annual thematic list of endangered and at-risk landscapes designed to spark debate, reveal the value of everyday places, and encourage informed community-based stewardship decisions about threatened sites. Lists are thematic to illustrate the presence of similar typologies (e.g. Modernism) and landscape features (e.g. trees) around the country. Landslide also elevates visibility of the profession and practitioners, reaching a diverse audience via the Web, traditional print, and through travelling photographic and signboard exhibits.

Our organization launched Landslide, an annual thematic list of endangered and at-risk landscapes, in 2004 with the intent of sparking debate, revealing the value of these places and encouraging informed stewardship decisions about their future. Landslide is thematic to illustrate the presence of similar styles or typologies (e.g. Modernism), landscape features (e.g. trees), and other commonalities around the country. By extension, Landslide also focuses attention of the profession and its practitioners. Since the target audience is very broad, Landslide’s information is packaged in multiple ways: Web-based, as traveling commissioned photographic exhibits, outdoor signboard exhibits, and traditional print (including exhibit guides, magazines, and calendars). The process begins on the front end with a nationwide call for nominations that annually generates scores of applications. It also includes a way for the public to connect with local advocates working to safeguard these sites. This diversity of outreach materials enables Landslide to reach stewards, educators, enthusiasts; and landscape architecture, planning, architecture, historic preservation professionals; and the general public.

Landslide themes are developed strategically to help tell the story of landscape architecture and design in multiple ways. Themes thus far include: Working Landscapes (2004), Spotlight on the Garden (2006), Heroes of Horticulture (2007), Marvels of Modernism (2008), Shaping the American Landscape (2009), and Every Tree Tells a Story (2010). Through Web features, travelling exhibits and print publications, Landslide has reached over 2 million readers and, in the process, reveals the value of these often forgotten and irreplaceable landscapes. The work of award-winning and world-renowned photographers illustrates the traveling photographic and signboard exhibits. The exhibits have been shown at venues across the country including The US Botanic Garden, Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, Rochester School of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, George Eastman House Museum of International Photography and Film, The Andy Warhol Museum, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, at six Design Within Reach studios, and more than two dozen universities, parks, gardens, historic houses, and other public spaces. In addition, we have partnered with regional ASLA chapters to bring exhibits to university landscape architecture programs including Ball State University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Since its inception, the project has garnered extensive national and regional media coverage including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Seattle Times, and The American Gardener to name a handful. Media partnerships have yielded print runs exceeding 700,000, the Web feature averages 6 million hits annually, and more than 1 million people have viewed the travelling exhibits.

Many of the sites featured in the annual Landslide program have benefited significantly from the attention. While some sites remain at-risk or have been lost, others have been saved. Lawrence Halprin’s Heritage Plaza has since been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Theodore Osmundson’s Kaiser Roof Garden and Minoru Yamasaki’s Pacific Science Center Courtyard have been renovated, and Dan Kiley’s iconic design for the Miller Garden is now in the care of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

To date, the Landslide initiative has received over $200,000 in public and private support including two grants from the Davey Tree Expert Company. Since its inception, the project has received support from Garden Design, American Photo, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, Design Within Reach, Hillman Foundation, Indianapolis Museum of Art, American Forests, The City of Charleston, and our education partner, ASLA.