Professor Hilderbrand will discuss the origins and contemporary implications of an activist practice of landscape architecture in response to planetary crises.

Gary Hilderbrand is the Peter Louis Hornbeck Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he has taught since 1990. Currently professor Hilderbrand serves as the chair of the Landscape Architecture department. He is also a founding principal of Reed Hilderbrand LLC, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has been responsible for significant works of landscape architecture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; MacDowell; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.

Hilderbrand’s career in practice is noted for his advocacy for urban forests and related innovations, including authoring the “Healthy Forest, Healthy City: The Cambridge Urban Forest Plan” and participation in the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Tidal Basin Ideas Lab in Washington, D.C. Current works include the repositioning of New York City’s Lever House and major interventions at the Storm King Art Center.

Hilderbrand is broadly published as an author and critic on landscape architecture practice and has written three widely praised monographs: Making a Landscape of Continuity; The Miller Garden: Icon of Modernism; Visible|Invisible: Landscape Works of Reed Hilderbrand, published in 2013 with Douglas Reed. Three dozen essays have appeared as journal articles or book chapters. His curated exhibitions include Making a Landscape of Continuity: The Practice of Innocenti & Webel; The Sasaki Years at Harvard, which focused on iconic projects of the Sasaki firm during the years Hideo Sasaki chaired the Department of Landscape Architecture; and Reciprocities, a comprehensive look at contemporary American practices exhibited in Barcelona at the Fifth European Landscape Biennial. Design Intelligence recognized Hilderbrand as one of the top 25 design educators in 2019. He was honored with the 2017 American Society of Landscape Architects Design Medal. The firm has been recognized with more than 100 regional and national awards. The firm monograph, Visible|Invisible, was recognized with the Award of Excellence in Communications from ASLA in 2013, and, in the same year, Reed Hilderbrand was recognized as ASLA’s Firm of the Year. In 2015, partners Douglas Reed and Gary Hilderbrand were voted among the top five “most admired practitioners” by the members of ASLA’s Professional Practice Network. The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry Alumnae Association honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021. In 2016, he was the Mellon Practicing Senior Fellow in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. He is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, where he was also the Mercedes T. Bass Resident in Landscape Architecture in 2017.

Hilderbrand’s hand-constructed maps, photo-collages, and design work have been exhibited in group shows and solo exhibitions at the American Academy in Rome, Sotheby’s New York, the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, Boston University Gallery of Art, and Harvard University.