2025 Year in Review
Each year brings great opportunities and unforeseen challenges. Thanks to your ongoing support The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) continues to see accomplishments across all initiatives. Significantly, a new laureate of the global Oberlander Prize was announced—Mario Schjetnan and his Mexico City-based firm Grupo de Diseño Urbano; in addition, advocacy has helped save endangered places, the What’s Out There (WOT) database has expanded to nearly 2,800 sites, and a Public Art Advocacy Fund has been launched.
These notable achievements are tempered by news of the tragic death of the 2023 Oberlander Prize laureate, Kongjian Yu, on September 23. He and a two-person documentary film crew and their pilot were killed when their small plane crashed in Brazil. He was beloved for being generous with his ideas, knowledge, and endless goodwill. His “sponge cities” concept to address flooding caused by climate change has inspired a global movement. His work is the impetus for TCLF’s conference Soak It Up: Los Angeles, CA, December 4–6. Among his greatest and most inspiring qualities were his perseverance and optimism, which TCLF endeavors to embody.
Early in the year, the new administration’s priorities resulted in the cancellation of a $30,000 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant and a $185,000 National Park Service (NPS) grant that were awarded to TCLF. Thanks to a crowdsourcing campaign and the generosity of TCLF Board Members, TCLF was able to make up for the rescinded smaller, NEA grant, but the loss of the other has not been offset.
Despite these headwinds, TCLF can also report the following:
• New York City’s beloved Russell Page-designed viewing garden at the Frick Collection reopened; the Elizabeth Street Garden was saved, though New York City Mayor-elect Mamdani wants to tear it down; and a settlement was reached in Des Moines, Iowa, about artist Mary Miss’s threatened environmental sculpture Greenwood Pond: Double Site;
• Three Pioneers Oral Histories are in production—Oberlander Prize laureate Mario Schjetnan; the author, photographer, landscape architect, and educator, Anne Whiston Spirn; and the late Boston-based landscape architect Susan Child;
• TCLF hosted five Oberlander Prize Forum webinars inspired by the work of Kongjian Yu and eight webinars focused on the protests featured in Landslide 2024: Demonstration Grounds;
• Aggressive advocacy is occurring on behalf of San Francisco’s Lawrence Halprin-designed Embarcadero Plaza and the Vaillancourt Fountain, Seattle’s Rich Haag-designed Gas Works Park, the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, Hiawatha Golf Club, among others; and,
• The digital WOT African American Cultural Landscapes Guide is nearing 200 sites.
Additionally, TCLF’s Garden Dialogues, in its thirteenth season, featured tours of numerous exceptional properties throughout the country, and a What’s Out There Weekend took place in Chicago, IL, with some 1,000 registered to attend.
TCLF’s annual spring international excursion explored Spain’s Balearic Islands of Menorca and Mallorca, and the annual fall excursion, in tandem with the American Society of Landscape Architect’s annual convention, took place in the southeastern Louisiana towns of New Roads and St. Francisville.
TCLF’s President, Charles A. Birnbaum, also provided ongoing technical assistance for Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park in New York City, NY; Innisfree Garden in Millbrook, NY, Springside NHL, Poughkeepsie, NY; Piedmont Park, Atlanta, GA; Colonial Williamsburg and Fort Monroe National Monument in Hampton, VA, and speaking engagements that included the Getty Conservation Institute, the Preservation Society of Newport, Longwood Gardens, and The Aldrich and the Bruce Museum in CT.
Media coverage has been extensive throughout the year. The settlement with Mary Miss over Greenwood Pond: Double Site was featured in The New York Times, Associated Press (and picked up by more than 150 outlets), Independent (UK), Le Journal des Arts (Paris, France), Elle Décor Italia (Italy), Art Newspaper, and more. The death of M. Paul Friedberg in February was covered by The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and numerous design media. The fate of Embarcadero Plaza and the Vaillancourt Fountain has received extensive coverage in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Wallpaper*, Art Newspaper, Artnet, The Architect’s Newspaper, and more. Oberlander Prize laureate Kongjian Yu’s “sponge cities” concept continued to generate international coverage such as ADF Magazine (Japan), Thansettakij (Thailand), World Economic Forum, Los Angeles Times, among others. Yu’s death in Brazil in September generated extensive global coverage including Wallpaper*, Dezeen, Forum Magazine (Brazil), Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy), and scores more. The announcement of Mario Schjetnan and GDU as the 2025 Oberlander Prize laureate, was covered by dozens of outlets including Reforma (Mexico), Fast Company, Wallpaper*, AZURE magazine (Canada), and many others.
This past year would not have been possible without the support of TCLF’s Season of Events Sponsors ABC Stone, Bartlett Tree Experts, PlayCore, Summerhill Landscapes, and Victor Stanley as well as the American Society of Landscape Architects. Most critically, TCLF’s mission of “connecting people to places” faces its greatest challenges to date as government funding is eliminated, critical guardrails are removed, and long-standing policies and protocols are ignored. Your sustained support, commitment, and generosity are more critical now than ever before. Thank you.