Years Ago, I happened to be present when Lawrence Halprin, FASLA, stood up and advocated for the design of his FDR Memorial before the Fine Arts Commission in Washington, D.C. "I want this to be a memorial that goes deep inside people," Halprin told the commissioners, "for hundreds of years into the future."rnI wish more landscape architects aspired to that kind of longevity for their work. The prevailing notion that a landscape has a life expectancy of only a few decades is, to me, deplorable. That's why it's doubly sad when a Halprin landscape that has been around only 30 years or so faces an uncertain fate. Halprin's latest at-risk project is Heritage Park in Fort Worth, Texas (see "An Endangered Heritage," page 32). This walled modernist plaza has been deteriorating for years. Its outdoor rooms, framed by concrete walls, were designed as a contemplative refuge from the nearby downtown, but many in Fort Worth saw them as places a visitor could be cornered.
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