Landscape Architect Carol R. Johnson, FASLA, spent four decades transforming urban spaces, campuses, industrial sites, and waterfronts into celebrated parks and public spaces.
In her oral history interview, she talks about her life, career, design philosophy, and what it meant to be an early and influential female practitioner, working in urban places in the greater Boston area.
Oral History Framework
Video Clips are divided into three categories: BIOGRAPHY, DESIGN, and PROJECTS. Each clip is between 30 seconds and 5 minutes long.
Interview: Carol Johnson, FASLA, was interviewed in July, 2006 by Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, at her office and on site at projects in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1. Childhood
Anecdotes and images from Johnson’s childhood give insight into her later career as a landscape architect.
2. College and Travel
Johnson credits her Wellesley experience and the “wonderful things” she saw on her bicycle trip in Europe with instilling an appreciation of landscape.
3. The Harvard Connection
While working at a nursery, Johnson’s chance meeting with students from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design led to her enrolling in the program.
4. A Woman at Harvard
After a year of being the only woman student in the Graduate School of Design’s landscape program, several others joined Johnson in the program.
5. The Architects Collaborative Years
After graduation, Johnson went to work at The Architects Collaborative (TAC), a firm she describes as “pretty nifty for women.”
6. Her Own Firm
Several early projects lead to Johnson working on the American Exposition of 1967, an assignment she describes in detail.
7. Energy Projects
Johnson’s description of two of her projects highlights challenges she found in designing landscapes for energy projects.
8. The Mount Auburn Street Office
Johnson shares recollections of hiring an interesting group of “less than perfectly trained architects” during the early years of her firm.
9. Travel to Kenya
Like her other trips, Johnson’s trip to Kenya helped her appreciate the physical landscape and ways people adapt and fit into it.
10. The Professional Licensing Exam
Johnson’s recollection of taking the exam for landscape architects in New York includes an amusing anecdote about a fellow participant.
11. Women and the Profession
Initially one of only a few women in the profession, Johnson recounts experiences with the American Society of Landscape Architects.
DESIGN
1. Landscape Architecture
Learn what Johnson loves about the profession and her “opportunities for expression in three-dimensions.”
2. Nature and Culture
Since her childhood, Johnson has been fascinated with the connection between environment and culture.
3. Favorite Projects
Johnson is particularly fond of projects in which “I dream, I think, it happens.” These projects realize a connection with community that is central to her work.
4. Design Decisions
Project examples illustrate Johnson’s description of what she considers in making decisions.
5. Plant Material
Johnson’s upbringing, work experience, studies, and love of her own garden contribute to her hands-on use of plant material in her designs.
6. Landscape Architecture in the Future
Learn why Johnson thinks there will be “tremendous opportunity” for landscape architects, both men and women.
7. Her Muses
After citing some influential individuals, Johnson concludes that she soaked up things wherever she could find them.
PROJECTS
1. Kennedy Park: Favorite Landscapes
Connections to her personal life make Kennedy Park, Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of Johnson’s favorite landscapes.
2. Kennedy Park: Beech Trees
Walking through Kennedy Park, Johnson stops to celebrate a “wonderful tree” and relates the reasons she wanted to plant beech trees.
4. Lechmere Canal Park
As she walks around Lechmere Canal Park, East Cambridge, Massachusetts, Johnson explains what her design added to the canal and basin.
5. Mystic: A Changed River
Johnson’s design has transformed the formerly polluted sites along the Mystic River from Medford to Everett, Massachusetts, into places of recreation.
6. Mystic: A Definition of Success
Johnson credits the Mystic Reservation with being “not only a horticultural success, but also a social and public use success.”
7. Old Harbor Park
Johnson’s Boston design created a linear park between the water and a housing development built on what had been a drug dealer’s heaven.
8. Old Harbor Park: A Community’s Role
Against views of Harbor Point, South Boston, Massachusetts, Johnson describes how “we’re all together on this.”
9. Old Harbor Park: Design
Johnson explains how the community and paintings of Fitz Hugh Lane helped her come up with her design for Harbor Point.
10. Old Harbor Park: Fishing as a Muse
As she walks along the water’s edge of Boston Harbor, Johnson points out references to fishing in her design.
Production Credits and Acknowledgments
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR
DIRECTOR/EDITOR
James Sheldon
INTERVIEWER
Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR
CAMERAMAN/PHOTOGRAPHY
James Sheldon
The Cultural Landscape Foundation would like to thank the many people who contributed to making the Carol R. Johnson Oral History a reality.
This first module in the Pioneers Oral History Series was produced in concert with TCLF’s education partner, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and received generous support from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, and the Hubbard Educational Trust (now the Hubbard Educational Foundation). Production of this module would not have been possible without the support, and dedication of Carol Johnson to the project.
Photographs, prints, and drawings reproduced courtesy of the following individuals and institutions:
Thank you to: The American Memory Project at the Library of Congress, Charles A. Birnbaum, Carol Johnson, Carol R. Johnson Associates Landscape Architects, Sasaki Associates, Inc., and to Mary Alice van Sickle at CRJA for help to secure the critical archival and contemporary images for this project.
University and Museum Archives:
Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University
Library and Archives Canada (Negative reproduction number: e001096692)
Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
