Remembering Catherine M. Howett
by Susan Turner, FASLA
The profession of landscape architecture, and the world, lost an intellectual giant and one of its most gentle souls. Catherine M. Howett FASLA (1934–2025) died on All Saints Day, and that is not an accident. A lifelong Roman Catholic, educated in Catholic schools, she converted to the Episcopalian Church late in life. Those who had the privilege to know her discovered an exceptional woman of astounding breadth and deep faith.
First and foremost, Catherine was a wife and mother. While earning her MA in language and literature at the University of Chicago she met and married John Howett. In 1966 John was hired as professor of art history at Emory University, and they moved to Atlanta with their four young and beautiful daughters. The family lived in a classic modern home anchored on a hillside near campus, surrounded by native woodland; Catherine created a beautiful garden near the house.
After setting up home, and settling her daughters in schools, Catherine found her next chapter at the University of Georgia, seventy-five miles down the rood in Athens. She had always had an interest in art and design, the natural world and environment, and history. The grad program at Georgia offered an MLA, and so despite the more-than-an-hour commute, she began coursework; it was a good fit for her passion in art and design, and nature and culture. Catherine excelled and developed a distinguished career in practice, scholarship, and teaching.
She worked professionally before joining the faculty at UGA. There hundreds of students had the opportunity to study the history of landscape architecture and the design arts from someone who’d actually seen the great monuments, landscapes, and urban public spaces of Europe and knew them well. Added to her first-hand knowledge and critical insight, Catherine was wiser than most. At a time when women faculty were a rarity, Catherine was advisor and mentor with the life experience as parent and mother as background.
As a research scholar Catherine was determined to expand the boundaries of the profession by exploring opportunities to redefine possibilities for interdisciplinary studies and built work. Her projects were never mainstream; for example, while a student she explored alternatives to traditional burial practices, proposing more ecologically suitable approaches long before the profession entertained these possibilities. To many, Catherine’s interests were radical; as such she pushed the profession to open doors as yet unexplored. On the other hand, she was a strong proponent of historic preservation and spent years doing historical research on the landscape and designers of significant places from both a personal and cultural perspective, most notably, that of Reynolda House and Gardens and its creator, in Winston-Salem, NC.
Her marriage to art historian John meant that from their earliest years she’d been in the territory of art movements that challenged boundaries; she was interested in earthworks and environmental sculpture, and was able to create a five-year partnership with sculptor George Trakas on the Washington State campus.
As a design critic involved in the intersections of the arts, the humanities, and architecture, landscape architecture and urban design, Catherine was sought after as juror, critic and panel member, including the National Endowment for the Arts and The National Trust for Historic Preservation. She served as visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and served as a Senior Fellow of Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. She was an inspired and tireless board member for both the Southern Garden History Society, serving as president and a member of the Publications Committee; and the Alliance for Historic Landscape Preservation, serving on the executive committee.
Catherine retired in 1999 as professor emerita, where she’d been professor of landscape architecture and historic preservation.
On a personal note, I had the good fortune to have John Howett as my academic advisor as an Emory student, and it was he who led me to a profession in landscape architecture. Catherine had just begun her UGA coursework, and he felt it might be a good fit for me. My desk in design studio was next to Catherine’s, and we became closer as the years, late nights, and painful design crits multiplied. From that point on, she and I were comrades, serving on committees and boards together, were roommates at preservation and teacher conferences; as my mother aged, and I became a mother of a daughter myself, I had the counsel and support of one of the dearest and most generous friends I’ve made in life. As my husband and I live through the joys of an 8-year-old granddaughter, I find myself wishing for Catherine’s calm presence and prescience.
Suzanne “Susan” Turner is professor emerita of the School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University, principal of Suzanne Turner Associates, and TCLF board member.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Cultural Landscape Foundation [tclf.org] in her memory.