Essay
Halprin, partially through the influence of his wife, Anna, considered the role of the landscape architect as that of a “design choreographer.” The raised ramps and overlooks at Heritage Park embody what he meant by that.
the park and its location above the Trinity River. As the National Trust for Historic Preservation noted, “in parks such as Heritage Park, where water is integral to the design, the loss of water moving through the landscape because of disrepair and neglect so thoroughly impacts the aesthetic and the experience that the design becomes unintelligible.” As noted in the Plaza’s entry on the National Register of Historic Places, Heritage Park Plaza allowed Lawrence “…to further develop his skills at choreographing water to create sequential human experiences or ‘motation,’ a theory of site-specific movement developed by Halprin and his choreographer wife Anna.” Through his relationship with Anna, Lawrence developed a creative process that combined experiments in choreography and emphasized infrastructural networks, multidisciplinary collaboration, and ecological concerns. In looking to Heritage Park Plaza in Fort Worth, we can gain a greater understanding of Lawrence and Anna’s cross-disciplinary relationship at a more localized level; and by contributing to the awareness of the current state of Heritage Park Plaza, we might also encourage recognition and support of the park’s pending renovation and re-opening. Lawrence distinguished his role from that of architects and planners, describing the landscape architect as a “‘design choreographer’ with a kinetic approach to movement through landscape.” Many of his best-known projects — the aforementioned FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C., Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, and Lovejoy Plaza in Portland, Oregon —
22 Texas Architect
1/2 2016