One of the world’s leading landscape architects and environmental planners, Lawrence Halprin was at the forefront of urban design innovation in the United States. His practice comprised a catalogue of leading-edge environmental design in projects ranging from inner urban centers to National Parks. His reputation is built on fifty years of expanding our expectations for the environmental realm.

Projects that were transformed by his particular sensitivity and talent became benchmarks in the development of our current values. These projects include The Sea Ranch, a residential development on the California coast; Ghirardelli Square, an early model for the reuse of historic buildings in an urban environment; Seattle Freeway Park; Levi Plaza in San Francisco; and The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, a presidential memorial in Washington, D.C., and Stern Grove in San Francisco.

Inevitably, the honors that Lawrence Halprin received for such a prolific career were multitudinous and varied. On March 6, 2003, Halprin was presented with the 2002 Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2002, he was the first American to receive the Friedrich Ludwig Von Sckell Golden Ring award in Germany. Among his other numerous awards is the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture and the Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement awarded by the American Institute of Architects. He received a presidential appointment to the first National Council on the Arts and also to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. He was Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, The American Institute of Interior Design, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania and the California College of Arts and Crafts.

Other projects include work in Israel, on an extension to a Promenade he designed overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem; an enhancement to the FDR memorial in Washington, D.C., a new approach to Yosemite Falls, and the Letterman Complex in the Presidio in San Francisco.