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

Abdul-Jabbar Praises Harvard’s Stand Against the Trump Administration

NBA legend urges graduating seniors to stand up for justice.

Harvard Cancelled Affinity Celebrations. Students Held Them Anyway.

In hotels, parks, and churches, graduates decried the end of DEI programs.

School of Public Health Graduates Hear Blunt Critiques of Trump

Infectious disease expert Céline Gounder describes “a war on science.”

Most popular

International Student Ban Casts a Shadow on Harvard Commencement

Graduates discuss Trump's moves as students and alumni hold rallies

Abraham Verghese Named Harvard Commencement Speaker

Physician and author will address the graduation exercises May 29.

“Advocate for Education,” Garber Urges

At traditional Baccalaureate Address, Harvard president recalls his student years

Explore More From Current Issue

Shepherdess Mary Berle's Massachussetts Mountain Farm

A former educator takes on one last big project: sheep farming

Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences on Discipline and Financial Aid

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences discusses classroom conversations, boosts aid, addresses discipline—and faces austerity

Springtime with Mass Audubon

Springtime with Mass Audubon