The Growing Importance of Landscape Architecture

If you thought we’d been talking about landscape starchitect Michael Van Valkenburgh a lot lately (and making up the new phrase “landscape starchitect”), what with his being a lead in both the St. Louis Arch re-do shortlist and the much-talked about new Brooklyn Bridge Park, winning an American Academy Arts and Letters Award, and designing the grounds for the George W. Bush Presidential Center, well, it’s because we have been. And the Boston Globe makes the case that that’s because, thanks to a heightened awareness of (and concern over) environmental issues and public space, landscape architecture is moving beyond its perceived function of just putting in the hedgerows and making sure the right kind of grass is put in, and into