Pioneer Information
Born in 1952, Wolff discovered his abilities in horticulture at St. John’s College (Annapolis), where he graduated with a BA in 1974. He spent the following year as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, studying historic gardens in France, Italy, and England, before enrolling at the University of Michigan, where, in 1979, he earned an MLA. Wolff subsequently moved to Chicago to join Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, eventually becoming its head of landscape architecture. In 1990 he became director of the Chicago office of the Atlanta-based landscape architecture firm Roy Ashley & Associates. He founded Wolff Landscape Architecture (later Wolff Clements and Associates, now Confluence) three years later and served as principal landscape architect until 2019, transitioning to consultancy until retirement in 2022.
Much of Wolff’s work has encompassed the preservation and rehabilitation of historic public landscapes and the design of new ones in Chicago. In the late 1990s Wolff designed a new landscape entry for the Garfield Park Conservatory and redesigned the Jackson Park Pavilion open-air courtyards. He also designed the Calumet Open Space Reserve Plan and the South Shore Nature Sanctuary, both in 2002. That same year he completed the restoration of the Lily Pool in Lincoln Park (originally designed by Alfred Caldwell in the 1930s and designated a National Historic Landmark 2006). In 2003 his firm restored the council ring originally designed by landscape architect Jens Jensen for Columbus Park, which was also designated an NHL the same year. Other notable landscape preservation projects included the rehabilitation of the island located in Lake Willowmere at the historic Graceland Cemetery (2007) and the implementation of landscape architects Hoerr Schaudt’s design for the two-acre Southbank Park on the Chicago River’s South Branch.
In addition to his design work, Wolff has served as an adjunct professor in the Landscape Architecture program at Illinois Institute of Technology (2008–2011). Wolff is also an avid birder and a vocal advocate for avian-friendly landscape design.
