Charles Birnbaum

Abstract

John Muir was a self-proclaimed preservationist who recognized that nature had intrinsic value and that it should be protected for its beauty, spiritual associations, and ecological significance. This value was solely based on the landscape’s genius loci and was not attributed to any public benefit.

The notion of the “preservationist” as an enlightened guardian of cultural heritage has changed considerably since Muir’s time. Today the term “preservationist” is often weaponized by architecture critics, opinion page columnists, and others who label advocates as fretful, rabid, dogged, unrelenting, and combative. To deal with this messaging and image problem, perhaps the more accurate description of what’s often done with the stewardship of historic resources is “managing change.” 

If our goal is to consider the future of the historic preservation movement – and the movement is both grass roots and seasoned professional designers and technicians – what does it mean to preserve or conserve gardens and other managed landscapes today? To answer this question, it’s necessary to factor in more than the media’s impressions, there are also challenges to legal precedent and established case law as well cuts to state and federal level offices and funding.

This session titled, The Expanded Field of Preservation, recognizes that as tools and technologies have improved and bring higher levels of precision to conservation work of both living and non-living materials (e.g. the Garden Theatre and Cascade Garden at Longwood Gardens), what is considered worthy of preservation by municipalities, cultural institutions, academia, design/historic preservation professionals, and the public varies widely.  For example, is a museum’s sculpture garden by a master landscape architect part of the institution’s material collection and subject to curatorial oversight? Is the management and preservation of an institution’s designed landscape held to the same standards as its building architecture?  This session will consider how we assign value regarding the treatment and management of historically significant resources.

Biography

Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, is Founder, President & CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). Prior to creating TCLF, he spent 15 years as Coordinator, National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative and a decade in private practice in NYC with a focus on landscape preservation and urban design. (During this time, he worked on a number of Olmsted-designed landscapes including Boston’s Emerald Necklace; Prospect Park, Brooklyn, Lake Washington Boulevard, Seattle and Downing Park in Newburgh). For the Bicentennial of Olmsted’s birth, Birnbaum was engaged in myriad programs to raise public awareness for this unrivaled legacy. His technical assistance work continues via TCLF with current projects at The Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY; Cheekwood Estate and Botanical Gardens in Nashville, TN and the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C. to cite a few examples.  

Birnbaum has authored/edited numerous publications including Experiencing Olmsted (Timberpress, forthcoming Fall 2022), Modern Landscapes: Transition and Transformation (Princeton Press), Shaping the American Landscape (UVA Press), Design with Culture (UVA Press), Preserving Modern Landscape Architecture (Spacemaker Press), and the forthcoming Experiencing Olmsted (Timberpress). Birnbaum was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s GSD, and a Rome Prize recipient. He was awarded ASLA’s LaGasse Medal in 2008, President’s Medal in 2009 and the ASLA Medal (The Society’s highest honor in 2018). In 2023 TCLF was awarded the Olmsted Medal for their 25 years of education and advocacy.

Birnbaum serves as a Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s GSD (2020-) and has served as a Visiting Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture (2011-16), and the Glimcher Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University (2007). From 2010-18 he was a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post. In 2021, TCLF unveiled The Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Prize in Landscape Architecture, a permanently endowed Prize with a $100,000 purse.