Pioneer Information
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Rolland immigrated to the United States with his family in 1936. Raised in Metuchen, New Jersey, he attended Delaware Valley College (now Delaware Valley University) in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where he received a BS (1952) in ornamental horticulture). He subsequently studied at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, earning an MLA (1955). Upon graduation, Rolland joined Perkins & Will, a multi-disciplinary firm in White Plains, New York, as chief site planner. Drafted the following year he spent two years with the US Army Corps of Engineers in Philadelphia while working part time for both George Patton and Horace Fleischer. Rolland returned to Perkins & Will in 1958 before joining Lawrence Halprin & Associates in San Francisco, California (1960–1962).
Returning to New York in 1963, Rolland established his own practice in Rye. His early commissions included the Rockefeller Estate, Pocantico Hills, and the master plan (1964) for the new State University of New York (SUNY), Old Westbury campus. He continued to design campus landscapes, partnering with architect Edward Larabee Barnes on SUNY Purchase (1965) and the Emma Willard School in Troy, NY (1968). In the late 1960s he began working internationally, designing the American International Underwriters (now American International Group) Asian Headquarters in Tokyo, Japan.
In the 1970s Rolland designed several corporate campuses, began long-term teaching appointment at the Yale School of Architecture, and traveled to Italy as a Fellow in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome (1978). After the fellowship he worked with Mitchell/Giurgola architects (now Mitchell Giurgola) on the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, conceiving of the landscape and building together. Rolland then opened an office in partnership with landscape architect Shavaun Towers in 1981. He continued to design corporate campuses, institutional grounds, and university campuses— including Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts—collaborating with Cornelia Hahn Oberlander on the master plan. Rolland retired from private practice in 1997, continuing to teach, serve on juries, and consult.
He became a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1997 and passed away July 26, 2025.
