The entire world could have missing a pioneering and completed landscape architect from Vancouver and an esteemed member of the city’s Jewish neighborhood but her perform and contributions to city spaces proceed to thrive and encourage for the two existing and potential generations.
Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, who was born in Germany on June 20, 1921, died in Vancouver at the age of 99 on May possibly 22.
Just prior to her death, Vancouver metropolis council permitted the Liberty of the Town Award, the city’s most prestigious award for those people who have garnered countrywide or global renown and introduced recognition by way of their do the job, for Oberlander on May possibly 18.
Oberlander’s nomination for this award was supported by the Jewish Federation of Vancouver, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia in honour of Jewish Heritage Thirty day period.
“Cornelia Oberlander was one particular of Vancouver’s most renowned Jewish inhabitants, and throughout Jewish Heritage Month this Might, we honour her excellent achievements in bringing earth-course landscape style to Canada, and to Vancouver in unique,” Mayor Kennedy Stewart stated in a information release. “On behalf of Council, I lengthen my deepest sympathies to her relatives and pals. May perhaps her memory be a blessing.”
It was just a person of numerous awards and accolades that Oberlander collected around her illustrious job.
Oberlander escaped Nazi persecution in Germany when she was 18 decades old, and fled to England before immigrating to the U.S., the place she was amongst the first class of females to graduate from Harvard College with a diploma in landscape architecture.
Following she moved to Vancouver, she started her individual landscape architecture company in 1953 and made her vision for eco-friendly cities and incorporating character into urban environments.
Amid her do the job in shaping general public spaces in Vancouver are her renowned use of logs for seating at community beaches (1963), and her contributions to Robson Square and Legislation Courts (1983), the Vancouver General public Library Central Branch’s rooftop backyard garden (1995), the VanDusen Botanical Backyard garden Customer Centre (2011), and UBC’s Museum of Anthropology and the C. K. Choi Developing.
Outside of Vancouver, she also made landscapes for housing and playgrounds throughout Canada, drafted nationwide recommendations for producing participate in spaces in Canada, and labored on initiatives such as the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Chancery in Washington, D.C.
She experienced also gained the Margolese National Style for Living Prize, the 2013 Mayor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Accomplishment, the Inside Designers of Canada/Global Interior Design Association Leadership Award of Excellence, Emily Carr University’s Health care provider of Letters, and was named to the Purchase of Canada in 2017.
