Pioneer Information
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Johanson earned a B.F.A. in painting from Bennington College in 1962 and an M.F.A. in art history from Hunter College in 1964. As a student, Johanson developed a friendship with abstract expressionist painter, Helen Frankenthaler, and a number of other emerging artists. In 1964 Johanson was introduced to artist Georgia O’Keefe and traveled to her home and studio in New Mexico to catalogue her work. An early career milestone included her massive 28-foot canvas, William Clark (1967), featured at the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition, The Art of the Real. Another key early work, Stephen Long (1968), stretched 1,600 feet across an empty railroad track to interact directly with changing natural light.
In 1969 Johanson was commissioned by House & Garden magazine to design a garden. Johanson produced 150 drawings that proposed “sculptural solutions to environmental problems.” From 1971–1973 she served as a site planner at Mitchell/Giurgola Architects and in 1977 graduated from the City College School of Architecture (now Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture) with a B.A. in architecture.
Her breakthrough ecological project came with the Fair Park Lagoon (1981–1986) in Dallas, Texas. Here, she created monumental, plant-shaped terracotta structures that controlled shoreline erosion, provided animal microhabitats, and integrated public walkways. Johanson then designed the Endangered Garden (1987–1997) in San Francisco, constructing a 0.3-mile public promenade on top of a sewage treatment facility. The park’s layout mimics the shape of the endangered San Francisco garter snake, incorporating butterfly meadows and tidal pools. Later, her Petaluma Wetlands Park (2001–2009) in California fused a water recycling facility with restored marshes. Her final massive intervention, The Draw at Sugar House (2003–2018) in Salt Lake City, combined a sculptural pedestrian underpass with a flood-control system mimicking native rock formations.
In addition to her extensive work in the United States, Johanson practiced internationally, contributing to land reclamation projects in South Korea, Brazil, and Kenya. Later in her career, from 2019–2022, Johanson designed an interdisciplinary approach to renaturalizing a 45-acre wetland habitat at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Canada.
Johanson passed away at the age of 84 at her home in Buskirk, New York.
