Van Valkenburgh Named GSD Class Day Speaker

Landscape architect, professor, will address design school

Michael R. Van Valkenburgh, Eliot professor in practice of landscape architecture, will be the Harvard Graduate School of Design Class Day speaker on May 28. Van Valkenburgh, who has taught at the GSD since 1982, led the replanting of Harvard Yard with diverse tree species in the mid 1990s in a much-lauded design. (He also this spring contributed the design for the new landscaping for Harvard Yard’s main entry, the Johnston Gate.) More recently, his firm, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, designed the immensely popular Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City, described and pictured in an article in Harvard Magazine last year that described him as “probably the most celebrated landscape architect in America.”

Van Valkenburgh won the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Environmental Design in 2003, and in 2010 became the second landscape architect in history to receive the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for contributions to architecture as an art. He has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2011. His firm’s work is also the subject of the 2008 book, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates: Reconstructing Urban Landscapes.

You might also like

Celebrating Integrity

Harvard passes a test of its values, yet challenges loom.

Alumni Cheer on Harvard

At Alumni Day, ringing endorsements of Harvard’s fight

The “Obligation to Heal”

Amid distrust of science, Paula Johnson tells medical and dental graduates to be “citizen-physicians.”

Most popular

The Professor Who Quantified Democracy

Erica Chenoweth’s data shows how—and when—authoritarians fall.

FAS Dean Outlines Preparations for Loss of Federal Funding

“To preserve our mission, we must act now,” Hoekstra says at faculty meeting

International Scholars and Students Targeted—Again

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announces fresh investigation into Harvard’s participation in the Exchange Visitor Program.

Explore More From Current Issue

Can an Orange a Day Stave off Depression?

A research study digs into the gut microbiome.

Harvard’s Comedy and Improv Scene

In comedy groups, students find ways to be absurd, present, and a little less self-conscious.