Medal of Arts: Laurie Olin |
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Laurie Olin, Practice Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, was recently awarded the 2012 National Medal of Arts— the nation's highest civic honor for excellence in the arts—by the National Endowment of the Arts. President Barack Obama presented the award at a ceremony this summer at the White House.
President Obama cited Mr. Olin for "his acute sense of harmony and balance between nature and design," and noted that he has "dedicated his energy to shaping many iconic spaces around the world and to educating new leaders in his art."
Mr. Olin, who has taught at Penn more than 35 years, established the landscape architecture, urban design and planning firm, Olin Partnerships, Ltd., with studios in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. It is responsible for revitalizing Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway—where he served as the landscape architect for the Barnes Foundation's new art education center—and many other projects across the world including New York City's Bryant Park and the Washington Monument Grounds. He was a member of Penn's Faculty Design Team that undertook, produced and implemented the University's Landscape Master Plan of 1976.
Professor Olin was recently honored with the 2013 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture, granted jointly by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and the University of Virginia School of Architecture and is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). He was the recipient of the 2011 American Society of Landscape Architects' Medal. His redesign of the Washington Monument grounds received the 2008 Design Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects. He, and his five partners, received the 2008 Landscape Design Award from the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. They were honored for their excellence and innovation in landscape design and dedication to sustainability. In 2006, the School of Design presented him with The G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching by a member of the practitioner faculty.
He co-authored the book OLIN: Placemaking, published by Monacelli Press, which features a selection of the OLIN studio's most celebrated landscape architecture, urban design and planning projects. He also authored an essay titled "More Than Just Wriggling Your Wrist" for the book Drawing/Thinking: Confronting an Electronic Age published by Routledge.
Mr. Olin is the fourth landscape architect to receive the National Medal for the Arts. Past honorees have included Penn's founding chair of landscape architecture and regional planning Ian McHarg (Almanac October 9, 1990).
Along with his fellow recipients, Mr. Olin was presented with the award by President Obama in July in the East Room of the White House. The National Endowment for the Arts was established by the Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the Federal Government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities.
To watch the video of the event see: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EciDRwKHONk
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