John Dixon Hunt
Symposium
29–30 October 2009
John Dixon Hunt
action/hunt:
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In the age of instantaneous recognition, Professor Emeritus John Dixon Hunt’s name and influence on the field of landscape architecture endures. Accolades and
accomplishments abounding, the author, editor, and professor to countless enrapt students (and his indelible work) were given rousing tribute by a most appreciative
JDH Has Been a Mentor to Us All A Tribute to John Dixon Hunt What is remarkable is that within so brief a period of time JDH, as he has been known somewhat affectionately since arriving here at Penn, moved from a seemingly periphery situation on the edge of the landscape architecture community. He then went on to be the Head of the Garden Library at Dumbarton Oaks to the Chairmanship of one of the most influential Departments of Landscape Architecture in the World, all the while editing two international journals (one of which he founded), Word and Image and Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed landscapes, and initiating and editing the University of Pennsylvania Press Series in Landscape Architecture. In that same period he has organized conferences, curriculum, delivered papers, published a flurry of important and authoritative books on landscape history and theory, while functioning as a communications interchange in English, French, German, and Dutch for leading scholars and practitioners in a half a dozen countries on several continents. John has changed and enlarged the literature and scholarly life of our field enormously and I for one am deeply grateful and indebted to him for it. When I went to Harvard in 1982 there were no trained landscape historians on the faculty there nor at Penn, Berkeley or much of anywhere. Mostly what there was were occasional visitors who were historians such as Al Fein. Landscape architects that had traveled some and had read a bit taught history, usually using Norman Newton’s Design on the Land, which was as out of date by then as it is now.
A number of scholars trained in art history, architecture history, and geography were gravitating to landscape study. The few art historians working particularly with gardens such as David Coffin at Princeton or Elizabeth MacDougal at Dumbarton Oaks had very little exposure to or connection with either the students or practitioners in the field of landscape architecture. JDH stood out then, as he does today, for his great knowledge and ability to position physical design within its cultural setting and for a gregarious nature which led him to engage those who actually make the work he has studied with
enthusiasm and skill. Unlike many historians, he is an enthusiastic observer of the actual products of his study with exceptional visual acuity, which he combines with a love of physically being in the landscape and moving about in it. An avid hiker and skier for much of his life, he has personal experience of the differences and gradients between the natural world and that of design, and seems to relish both. John has been a mentor to us all. His emphasis and development of an ever evolving and changing series of topics in a sequence of theory courses has been his way of dealing with the problem of having American format lecture classes with little in the way of the English tutorial method in which to work. In so doing he has striven to raise the level of critical thought of both our faculty and students. I have been extremely fortunate to participate in these courses for a number of years, sharing the lectures and resulting discussion with him and the students. It has been more than stimulating.
landscape and design and PennDesign community. Much like the man himself, the symposium gathered far across disciplines and specialties to demonstrate what it means to truly possess great effect.
John managed to do something I’d yearned for, first as a student in architecture, then as a young faculty member here, and as a practitioner, which was to get us all to read more, to learn as much about the world and what has been accomplished, thought, known and imagined about gardens and the landscape, and how it has or might shape our own work. There were moments in our class when I felt my role was to play Judy to his Punch—the idiot savant practitioner—but always, it was clear that he was keenly aware of the enormous number of issues and dilemmas facing those of us in practice. He was sympathetic, curious, and appreciative, and continually absorbing, understanding, and processing an enormous amount from us while we in turn were being sharpened, educated and strengthened by him. The Department of Landscape Architecture at Penn became world famous under the leadership of Ian McHarg. A few years after his retirement and the Chairmanship of Anne Spirn, one of Ian’s protoges, our search committee pondered what to do next. Ian was a hard act to follow, and the discussion centered upon what to do if we were to continue to lead the field and to set new goals for the profession as well as its pedagogy. The committee wisely decided that we needed to reinforce the social engagement of our field, especially as a humanist art and not merely as an applied social science—not instead of ecology, but in conjunction with it. Our committee concluded we needed someone to help develop and push history and theory. Thus we asked John to join us. The result has been a dramatic success. Under John’s leadership Penn continued as a beacon of thought and innovation for the field, continuing to produce leading practitioners and educators who have fanned out to all portions of the globe. Partly as a result of the litany of works I reeled off above, and his unwavering efforts in the classroom and school faculty our school and the field have gained significantly. John it has been a great run, and I am grateful, as I know my colleagues and your students are. I will truly miss you. —Laurie Olin
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