Legal Anecdotes and Miscellanea

from January 2023

Letter to the Editor

By Victoria Luxford*

GARDENS AT THE VANCOUVER LAW COURTS At the Vancouver Law Courts, plants are omnipresent—except, perhaps unfortunately, in the courtrooms themselves.1 Whether one is conferring with opposing counsel under the glass roof or taking a moment in one of the many secluded outdoor spaces Robson Square offers to steel oneself for final submissions, the plants of the Law Courts provide a soothing backdrop to some of our more demanding days. And as with the content of many of our best legal submissions, these plants were conscientiously and precisely chosen and arranged.

The selection of plants (or in some cases, given the evolving nature of the garden, of their predecessors) was the work of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, a landscape architect. Oberlander was born in Germany2 and spent her early years in the “leafy suburbs” of Berlin.3 Her mother, a professional horticulturalist, was the author of several books about gardening with children; her father, an engineer, died in 1933 in an avalanche in Switzerland.4 The family fled Germany in 1938, among the many German Jews escaping Nazi persecution; they landed in New York in February 1939, and thereafter moved to a farm in New Hampshire.5

Oberlander was intent on landscape architecture from a young age, initially inspired by a painting she saw at the age of 11 and further motivated by her work in her garden in Berlin.6 In 1940, she was accepted by Smith College (in Northampton, Massachusetts) for an interdepartmental major in architecture and landscape architecture.7

In 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbour, the Smith College Board of Trustees closed its school and transferred the remaining students to the

* Victoria Luxford is an associate at Farris LLP and an enthusiastic indoor gardener.

Harvard Graduate School of Design, which was to admit women for fulltime enrolment for the first time.8 Oberlander enrolled in 1943 and graduated in 1947 with a bachelor of landscape architecture degree, having taken some time off in the course of her studies (due to her mother’s meddling) to work on her drafting skills in an architectural office.9

While at Harvard, Oberlander met her future husband, Peter Oberlander, at a picnic at Walden Pond.10 They married in 1953 and eventually settled in Vancouver11 after several years moving between Canada and the United States.12 They had three children, whose play helped to inspire Oberlander’s designs.13

Before Robson Square and the Law Courts, Oberlander cut her teeth (and then some) on a variety of projects. For example, she worked in Philadelphia and New York as a planner, “spearheading community design methods that involved the voices of the disenfranchised”.14 She also worked on residential housing projects, as well as children’s playgrounds.15 For Expo 67, she was hired to design an outdoor environment for the Children’s Creative Centre at the Canada Pavilion; she designed this playground to give children the opportunity to “run, climb, crawl, build, dig, and get wet”.16

In 1974, architect Arthur Erickson’s office approached Oberlander to make a proposal for the proposed Robson Square courthouse. Erickson’s master plan featured a “governmental monument ‘lying on its side’”.17 Oberlander responded enthusiastically with a number of technical questions and ideas, and was asked to join the team.18

This was a challenging project. For one, growing plants on the roof of this recumbent government building, as they contemplated, required innovation; it apparently took Oberlander three years to convince others on the project to use a lightweight growing medium composed of peat, sand and perlite. Oberlander researched and made use of the emerging concept of drip irrigation. Her work on the green roofs “helped to insulate the interior spaces and they were planted with low-maintenance species”.19

The overall concept for the space was integration; “[b]y locating a project that integrated government, judicial, public, and private uses with entertainment and cultural programming at this crossroads, it was planned that the city’s core would be livelier day and night”.20 The three-block long structure involved plantings, water features and paved areas for walking and sitting, as well as “complex spatial relationships between building elevation, street level, and below grade spaces”.21 As Oberlander later noted, “[p]eople come here to sit, to contemplate, to walk through”.22 The diverse architecture of the space—from old courthouse to new courthouse—would be tied together by the landscape.23

Oberlander’s planting design encompassed over 50,000 shrubs and trees. The colour palette of the plant choices was broadened from a somewhat monochromatic theme after Erickson reportedly “pointed out that there are many greens”.24

In the central block, there were three types of planting systems—walkway, flying planters and box planters—and “[e]ach planted area had its own plant palette and arrangement in relation to the structure”.25 The plantings on the walkway included rhododendrons, laurel, mugo pines, kinnikinnick and ivy. In the box planters, Oberlander placed lodgepole pines, Japanese maple and magnolia. The flying planters (“the narrow trays that cantilevered from the façade of the provincial government buildings on Block 61 and the Law Courts on Block 71”) contained memorial roses and clipped laurel.26

At the corner of Robson and Hornby Oberlander placed a mound; this was “planted to resemble a small clearing in a woodland with a layering of lodgepole pines and maples underplanted with rhododendrons, photinia, and vines, and with an open lawn crowning the top of the mound”.27 Oberlander herself described this as an “enchanted forest”.28

On the northwest sides of Blocks 61 and 71, Oberlander (at the insistence of the city council) planted red sunset maples, although Erickson originally selected London Plane trees.29 They were planted 15 feet on-centre,30 instead of 30 feet on-centre—with this placement, people could feel protected from the sun and the rain.31 The rejected London Plane trees were later used in the 1981 renovations by which the old courthouse was converted to the Vancouver Art Gallery, arranged in a row to connect this block with the central block.32

Trees were particularly important to Oberlander. In the 1977 book Trees in the City, which she co-authored with Ira Bruce Nadel (and illustrator Lesley R. Bohm), the authors wrote: “To look up and see a tree before a large imposing building provides a sense of human scale in an inhuman cityscape. The individualization of space shatters the anonymity of city life”.33

For the interior of the courthouse, Oberlander chose a variety of plants, including ferns, peace lilies, palms, umbrella trees, ivy and figs.34 The plant list includes items with evocative names such as “Madagascar dragon” as well as two types of figs: “creeping” and “weeping”.35

The indoor plants were selected to complement the design of the Law Courts’ lobby, the dimensions of which were apparently based on the law courts of Pompeii; correspondingly, Oberlander selected plants that an archaeologist had identified in excavations at Pompeii.36 In a 1981 article

(aptly titled “An Oasis in the City”), Oberlander wrote: “The choice of plants for the glass-roofed Courthouse (Block 71) are the plants found in Mediterranean climate (Zone 10) since the Courthouse provided an indoor regime of a warmer zone. The size of the public entrance gallery is roughly the same size as that of the Roman basilica in Pompeii. Therefore, plants were chosen that were found among the excavation of Pompeii, such as the orange tree and variegated ivy”.37 Oberlander also wrote that the plane trees that were installed were from seeds “brought to Vancouver by Dr. W. C. Gibon in 1970 and were taken from the original Plane tree on the island of Cos (Greece) under which Hippocrates is said to have taken the oath of medicine about 400 B.C.”.38

Of course, over time, the identities of many of these plants have shifted. Unfortunately, the orange trees originally selected for the Law Courts’ lobby, which were sourced from an abandoned orchard in California and became the source themselves of juice and marmalade, apparently did not meet with judicial approval, and they were replaced with indoor ficus trees.39 Some plants were removed to make way for ventilation grates.40 After the Olympics in 2010, structural maintenance necessitated the removal of major portions of the plantings; some of this was maintained offsite during this time.41

Oberlander herself kept an eye on the shifting landscape. In the documentary City Dreamers, one scene features Oberlander at Robson Square. During the scene, she indicated that one of the plants did not belong with the pine tree it was planted with. At one point, she questioned a man who was doing a “visual review” of the area; she said, “You’d better do that, because things don’t look good” and told him that she was the landscape architect.42 In a 2015 presentation, Oberlander similarly criticized the use of flower pots; she said, “The flower pots I would like to eliminate, but the gardener puts them there every year; but just before I left, I was told no more.”43

During and following her work on Robson Square and the Law Courts, Oberlander worked on many other high-profile landscapes. For example, in designing the landscape for the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, she “conceived the landscape as a place to offer visitors experiences with plant specimens valuable to the livelihood of the First Nations”.44 At the National Gallery of Canada, Oberlander designed three major areas to evoke the subjects of the art displayed indoors.45

Oberlander passed away at the age of 99 on May 22, 2021, as a result of complications of COVID-19.46 She had earned numerous awards for her work, and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2018.47 Just

days before she passed away, she was awarded the City of Vancouver’s highest award: the Freedom of the City.48

Oberlander’s landscapes exhibit care for both those using the space, as well as those plants growing within it. One interviewer and commentator noted, “[t]hroughout all her projects, one clearly sees a concern for those using or inhabiting the spaces”.49 The architect Moshe Safdie is quoted as saying, “In Cornelia’s landscapes, you never get a sense that plants are unhappy. In fact, they are happy”.50

ENDNOTES

1. However, on a recent appearance in courtroom 60, the author was delighted to see the ivy visible through the windows. It brought to mind the words of

Michael Leccese in describing Oberlander’s work, that “one of Oberlander’s favorite themes [was to] elevate greenery from the garden and the plaza to the rafters where people work”: Michael Leccese,

“Canadian Modern” in Profiles in Landscape Architecture (Washington, DC: The American Society of

Landscape Architects, 1992) at 71. 2. As to the date of this key event, Oberlander apparently claimed one date as her “official” birthday to one of her biographers (June 20, 1924), although admitted that was not “in truth” her birthday (which was in 1921): Kathy Stinson, Love Every Leaf: The

Life of Landscape Architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander (Toronto: Tundra Books, 2008) at 3. 3. Susan Herrington, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander: Making the Modern Landscape (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013) at 13. 4. Ibid at 13. 5. Ibid at 11–13, 16; Stinson, supra note 2 at 1–17. 6. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, “Forging the Way” in

Amery Calvelli & Hilary Letwin, curators, Cornelia

Hahn Oberlander: Genius Loci (Art Gallery of

Alberta, 2021) at 14; Stinson, supra note 2 at 8–9;

Herrington, supra note 3 at 13. 7. Herrington, supra note 3 at 16. 8. Ibid at 22. 9. Ibid at 23, 27, 30. Apparently, Oberlander’s mother considered her daughter’s drafting skills to be “insufficient”: ibid at 27. 10. Hillary Letwin, “Dancing to the Music of Our Time:

Residential and Public Projects by Cornelia Hahn

Oberlander” in Calvelli & Letwin, supra note 6 at 23. 11. Oberlander is quoted as describing Vancouver as “a tiny town, with no theater, no great art gallery, and only two high-rises”, saying that here she was able to “conquer new ground”: Herrington, supra note 3 at 57. 12. Ibid at 56. 13. For example, watching one of her children build sandcastles reportedly inspired her to “use earthen mounds in more of her landscape designs”: Stinson, supra note 2 at 27. 14. Herrington, supra note 3 at 31. See also Stinson, supra note 2 at 25–26. 15. Stinson, supra note 2 at 29. 16. Ibid at 31; Herrington, supra note 3 at 103. 17. Herrington, supra note 3 at 123–24. 18. Ibid at 124; Stinson, supra note 2 at 39–40. 19. Herrington, supra note 3 at 127–28; Stinson, supra note 2 at 40. 20. Herrington, supra note 3 at 126. 21. Ibid at 128. 22. City Dreamers (First Run Features, 2018). 23. Herrington, supra note 3 at 128. 24. Ibid at 129. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid at 129–30. 27. Ibid at 131. For “Trees on Structures (plazas, roofs, parking garages)”, co-authors Ira Bruce Nadel and

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander list pines, Japanese maple and crab apple in Trees in the City (Toronto:

Pergamon Press, 1977) at 37. 28. Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, “An Oasis in the City:

Robson Square and the Law Courts” (1981) 2 Landscape Architecture 2 at 10 [“Oberlander (1981)”]. 29. Herrington, supra note 3 at 131–32. London Plane trees and Red Maples are (along with Tulip trees) listed under “Arterial (a major traffic street)” in Trees in the City, supra note 27 at 37. 30. Herrington, supra note 3 at 132. 31. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, “Landscape Lectures: Cornelia Hahn Oberlander” (22 September 2015) (video), online: YouTube <www.youtube.com/ watch?app=desktop&v=QaI_1PJYfwI>. 32. Herrington, supra note 3 at 136. 33. Supra note 27 at 19. 34. Oberlander (1981), supra note 28 at 13. The complete “indoor plants” plants list (by their common name) is given as follows in Oberlander’s 1981 article: weeping fig, peace lily, “Bella”’ neanthe bella palm, “Rooseveltii” Roosevelt fern, umbrella tree, lady palm, grape ivy, creeping fig, Madagascar dragon, Hawaiian umbrella tree, glory bower, heart shaped philodendron, cornstalk plant, reed palm and areca palm. 35. Ibid at 13. 36. Herrington, supra note 3 at 135. 37. Oberlander (1981), supra note 28 at 11. 38. Ibid at 12. 39. Herrington, supra note 3 at 135. 40. Ibid at 138.

41. Ibid at 139. 42. Supra note 22. 43. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, supra note 31. 44. Herrington, supra note 2 at 156. 45. Ibid at 165. 46. Penelope Green, “Cornelia Oberlander, a Farsighted Landscape Architect, Dies at 99”, The New

York Times (9 June 2021), online: <www.nytimes.com /2021/06/09/arts/design/cornelia-oberlanderdead-coronavirus.html>. 47. Ibid. 48. City of Vancouver, “Cornelia Oberlander”, online: <vancouver.ca/your-government/cornelia-ober lander.aspx>. 49. Martien de Vletter, “It Is All About Grading” in

Calvelli & Letwin, supra note 6 at 87. 50. Leccese, supra note 1 at 71.