2002
Focus on Kentucky
The Cultural Landscape Foundation salutes these four organizations whose efforts collectively share our mission of "stewardship through education." Their programs are collectively insuring the protection of Kentucky's extraordinary landscape legacy.
The Dry Stone Conservancy
has preserved historic drystone structures, advanced the drystone masonry craft and created a national center for training and expertise. Since its formation in 1996, the Dry Stone Conservancy has protected the unique and distinctive features of the historic rock fences of the Bluegrass landscape; its advisory and on-site consultations in many states have involved fields of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, conservation, preservation, archaeology, history, geography, job-development and tourism.
Kentucky Heritage Council
encourages the long-term preservation and protection of Kentucky 's significant cultural resources, maintaining continually updated inventories of historic structures and archaeological sites and nominating properties to the National Register of Historic Places. The Council's various programs demonstrate the contribution of historic resources to the heritage, economy and quality of life of all Kentuckians. Since its creation in 1966, the Council has sought to preserve and protect Kentucky's cultural landscapes. Noteworthy work includes a national record for rural landscape listings on the National Register of Historic Places; Streetscape Guidelines which balance historic preservation and design; and the first-ever attempt to support landscape features with a tax credit.
The Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy
is dedicated to the preservation, enhancement and restoration of the 18 Olmsted-designed parks and five Olmsted-designed parkways in Louisville. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this landscape legacy is one of only five such Olmsted systems in the country. The state of disrepair found in the parks in the early 1980s led to the formation of the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy in 1989. The Conservancy has worked in concert with the city to upgrade and replace roads, buildings, trails and drainage systems and to right the tree and horticultural destruction caused by the 1974 tornado—thereby maintaining the character-defining green oases of park acreage and parkway miles for generations to come.
River Fields, Inc.,
founded in 1959, as guardian of a 50-mile stretch of the Ohio River, acts as an advocacy group and a land trust. By promoting environmentally sensitive land and water use, River Fields aims to protect, preserve and enhance the natural and cultural resources of the river corridor. River Fields combines expertise in urban planning, environmental law, and the science of river ecosystems with an understanding of the forces of growth and development. As a land trust, River Fields has preserved over 1000 acres in the watershed through land purchase or donation, or through the execution of conservation easements. River Fields holds easements, which will protect in perpetuity high quality natural areas, farmland and vital ecosystems. The organization is a model for river conservation groups nationwide with their broad nature-culture stewardship ethic, encompassing the entire cultural landscape of the Ohio River Corridor.
2001 - The First Stewardship Award
The Honorable Richard M. Daley
has been the Mayor of Chicago since 1971. When he first took office the state of many of the parks was like many other American cities - what was once a celebrated collection of natural, cultural and scenic assets had become a collection of open spaces that were deteriorating and at times perceived as unsafe. Ever since the discovery of a cache of drawings at the Chicago Park District two decades ago, Mayor Daley has reversed that trend. Today the city boasts a system that has been preserved, restored, interpreted and celebrated. Today, Chicago's extraordinary legacy of historic parks from the Washington and Jackson parks in the South Park system designed by Olmsted and Vaux to the Columbus, Garfield, Douglas and Humboldt Parks that comprise the West Park system designed by Jens Jensen, these historic designed landscapes are not only recognized, but appreciated and highly used by Chicagoans and visitors. In addition to now serving their neighborhoods as engines for economic revitalization, this unparalleled legacy of parks and boulevards are finding their ways on the National Register and even becoming National Historic Landmarks.