Make Visible, Instill Value and Engage the Public in Our Shared Landscape Heritage

What is the foundational knowledge that informs stewardship and interpretation of our shared landscape legacy? How do we assign value and assess significance for our cultural landscape legacy? How can we work (and communicate) holistically across multiple disciplines? How do we make a landscape’s layers of history (a.k.a. “palimpsest”) at a cultural landscape like Naumkeag, The Mount or Elm Court understood? Then, armed with this foundational knowledge, how can we tell these stories to the broadest possible public? Drawing heavily on both the work of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) and its collaborators, this year's online Winter Lecture presented by Charles A. Birnbaum will highlight a diversity of resource types throughout the U.S., emphasizing stewardship strategies and opportunities for public engagement in the Berkshires region. In addition, this presentation explores the interface between history/historic advocacy and natural systems/ecology in weighing decisions will provide an armature for new ideas and strategies. A question and answer period will follow the presentation.

Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, is the president, CEO and founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). Prior to creating TCLF, Birnbaum spent 15 years as the coordinator of the National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative (HLI) and a decade in private practice in New York City, with a focus on landscape preservation and urban design. One of his major projects is the web-based initiative What’s Out There, a searchable database of the nation’s designed landscape heritage. He has authored and edited numerous publications, including Shaping the Postwar Landscape (UVA Press, 2018), the Modern Landscapes: Transition and Transformation series (Princeton Architectural Press, Volumes printed in 2012 and 2014), Shaping the American Landscape (UVA Press, 2009), Design with Culture: Claiming America’s Landscape Heritage (UVA Press, 2005), Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture (1999) and its follow-up publication, Making Post-War Landscapes Visible (2004, both for Spacemaker Press), Pioneers of American Landscape Design (McGraw Hill 2000) and The Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes (National Park Service, 1996). In 1995, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) awarded the HLI the President's Award of Excellence. In 1996, the ASLA inducted Birnbaum as a Fellow of the Society. He served as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, during which time he founded TCLF. In 2004, Birnbaum was awarded the Rome Prize in Historic Preservation and Conservation and spent the spring and summer of that year at the American Academy in Rome. In 2008, he was the Visiting Glimcher Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University's Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture. That same year, the ASLA awarded him the Alfred B. LaGasse Medal, followed by the President’s Medal in 2009. In 2017, Birnbaum received the ASLA Medal, the Society's highest award.

Advance registration is required.