On Wednesday, February 12, Sara Zewde, landscape architect and founding manager of Studio Zewde, held this year's Lee Frank Lecture in Art History. The lecture, which was held on a packaged, committed space by students and faculties, was introduced by Associate Professor and Chairman of Brian Goldstein Art History. Zewde, assistant professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, took the participants on a journey through the intersection of landscape architecture, culture and history and discussed their studies of the legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and their own work in the industry.
A thread that went through the lecture was Zewdes exploration of the heritage of Olmsted, who is often referred to as the father of the landscape architecture. Olmsted is best known for his hands to design Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City. His work had an immense influence on the American landscapes and Zewdes his own research and practice were deeply influenced by him. During a crucial point in Zewdes, she decided to trace Olmsted's steps through the south during a period of fourteen months in his life.
In the lecture, Zewde found how the landscapes that Olmstead has recorded since his travels have changed. In several cases, she found that the landscape had been changed in a way that covered the dark past of slavery and segregation in the country. The examples she gave this phenomenon showed that landscape architecture as a socio -political instrument could be used for the same means, while in different cases they appear very different. In one case, a black tomb in the south was covered by a park with a pavilion and towering oak; Zewde discovered the tombstones that Olmsted had carefully absorbed in the city. In another case, another grave was transformed into an underpass with a highway.
As Zewde emphasized, landscape is a powerful tool and can be used to protect the story or too dark. For them, the understanding of Olmsted's southern journey – often regarded as a “independent youth” of his life – was of central importance to record how landscape architecture could be used as a tool for social changes. On his travels, Olmsted observed and documented the deep social effects of slavery, an experience that would influence his later work in the Park Design.
After her discussion about Olmsted, Zewde spoke about her extensive experiences, including projects that range from national parks to urban areas across the country, from Seattle to Philadelphia. During the entire lecture, she emphasized her conviction that the landscape architecture, which is present in many facets of life, often remains underestimated, even though it both meant and designed our culture. Zewdes lecture focused on how landscape architecture can serve as a powerful instrument to provoke thoughts, heal social wounds and reinterpret public spaces.
Due to its landscape architecture firm, Zewde has managed several design projects, with the focus on the interpretation of site with cultural stories. It focuses on creating spaces that enable people to feel a deep sense of belonging. For the first time, she highlighted the Mander Campus in the nearby Philadelphia, a parking project near the district of Strawberry Mansion, for example how thoughtful landscape design promote connections, can offer refuge from violence and community of honor of the community. She described the meeting with the community in Strawberry Mansion by organizing a block party that was influenced by local traditions and the residents Collagen about creating what they loved at the park. They used these collages to find patterns in the values of the community and then designed the park with the information. For example, many people used the park as a space to organize family meetings.
Another remarkable local project that Zewde discussed during the lecture was her participation in the revival of the graffiti pier in Philadelphia. Originally an abandoned coal pier, the place became a cultural landmark of graffiti artists in the city and was particularly important for the wider graffiti community because Philadelphia is the birthplace of practice. Similar to the Mander campus, the company wanted to get in touch with the local community throughout the project. This was particularly important for the project because earlier attempts to limit public access to the pier and attempts to renovate were regarded as gentrification efforts. Since increasing tides threatened the physical structure of the pier, Zewdes team was able to get in touch with the local community by framing the project as one to save the pier instead of simply changing it. Zewdes shows the challenge of preserving the cultural integrity of the website and at the same time satisfying the practical needs such as compliance with ADA and the resistance of the floods for the landscape architecture.
Finally, Zewde touched the Beacon project in the New York Hudson River Valley, where her company has the environmental sustainability, seasonal plantings and respect for local voices of the locals to change the building and the surrounding country. The history of the site was fascinating – the existing building was originally built by the Nabisco Company and was one of six identical structures across the country. This practice is in a strong contrast to the approach that Zewde and her team changed in the transformation of the room.
In conversation with local indigenous people, Zewde was impressed by her feeling that “we all just go through”. In addition, she noticed the ironic fact that we often attribute the human name to the country to which we rely on natural elements that are common in many cultures of the American indigenous people. Taking these conversations into account, the website was transformed into a room that better reflects the native history. It was shown that the building, which is located on the banks of the Hudson River, is at risk in environmental modeling. Therefore, they decided to design the landscape taking into account this risk. In this process, they ensured that they do not frame water as a “enemy” to ensure that it was still part of the site without presenting a direct risk. Zewdes team decided to reverse many of the existing materials of the location and to plant local plants that are low -maintenance and good for the country and well and each other.
For Zewde, these three projects are underlined through a central topic of their work: the conviction that landscapes, although they are often considered static, live, develop developing entities that can be used to use critical conversations about history, breed and society lead. She spoke about how her work question the traditional boundaries of the field and reinterpreted the landscape architecture as a space for social healing, reflection and commitment of the community. Her message was clear: the landscape architecture should be expansionally, integrative and open to new possibilities. Ultimately, Zewdes Lee Frank lecture in 2025 offered much more than a discussion about landscape architecture – it was an invitation to rethink how we deal with the rooms around us and how these rooms in turn form the stories that we tell and leave the legacies behind that we leave behind.