Peter Walker, FASLA, founder of San Francisco-based PWP Landscape Architecture, explores the artistic and metaphorical themes of flatness or horizontality, most recently and spectacularly at the National 9/11 Memorial in New York, a project that required making a place from absence, or, as Walker says, “something from nothing.” Renowned for his international portfolio of inspired designs for parks, gardens, campuses, memorials, and plazas, Walker’s projects include Harvard University’s Tanner Fountain, the Nasher Sculpture Garden in Dallas, Barangaroo Point in Sydney Harbor, and Tokyo’s Saitama Plaza. A former chairman of Harvard University’s Landscape Architecture Department and former head of landscape architecture at UC Berkeley, his numerous personal awards include Harvard’s Centennial Medal, the University of Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson Medal, the ASLA Design Medal, the AIA Honor Award, and the inaugural IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award.

This presentation is part of the 17th Annual Landscape Design Portfolios Lecture Series, Designing the Unexpected, part of The New York Botanical Garden’s Adult Education Program. Support is provided by the Heimbold Foundation.