Richard Haag is best known for his rehabilitation of Gas Works Park in
Seattle and for a series of remarkable gardens at the Bloedel Reserve on
Bainbridge Island. He reshaped the field of landscape architecture as a
designer, teacher, and activist. In 1964, Haag founded the landscape
architecture department at the University of Washington, and his
innovative work contributed to the increasingly significant design
approach known as urban ecological design, which encourages thinking
beyond the boundaries of gardens and parks to consider the broader roles
that landscapes play within urban ecosystems, such as storm water
drainage and wildlife habitat.
Gas Works Park is studied in every survey of twentieth-century landscape
architecture as a modern work that challenged the tenets of modernism by
engaging a toxic site and celebrating an industrial past. Haag's work
with ecologists and soil scientists in his landscape remediation and
reclamation projects opened new areas of inquiry into the adaptive reuse
of post-industrial sites.
Thaïsa Way places Haag's work within the context of changes in the
practice of landscape architecture over the past five decades in the
Pacific Northwest and nationally. The book should be of interest to
specialists as well as to readers who are interested in the changes in
urban landscapes inspired by Haag's work.
Watch the book trailer: https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUBeOCA8-kQ
