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LANDSCAPE
JOURNAL
Landscape
Journal
DESIGN, PLANNING, AND MANAGEMENT OF THE LAND
V O L U M E 3 1 N U M B E R 1 –2 2 0 1 2

2. Landscape
Journal
DESIGN, PLANNING, AND MANAGEMENT OF THE LAND
Landscape Journal 31:1–2 2012
Landscape Journal is the journal of the Council
of Educators in Landscape Architecture and
is edited by the faculty in the Department of
Landscape Architecture at the University of
Minnesota. The journal is published twice yearly
by the University of Wisconsin Press.

3. ii
Editors
Lance Neckar, University of Minnesota
David Pitt, University of Minnesota
Consulting Editors
Arnold Alanen, University of Wisconsin, Madison
M. Elen Deming, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Kenneth I. Helphand, University of Oregon
James Palmer, Burlington, Vermont
Robert B. Riley, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Book Review Editors
Charles Andrew Cole, The Pennsylvania State University
Liat Margolis, University of Toronto
Conference Review Editor
Alan Tate, University of Manitoba
Editorial Assistant
Sara Grothe, University of Minnesota
Elizabeth Hixson, University of Minnesota
Nicole Peterson, University of Minnesota
Managing Editor
Vincent deBritto, University of Minnesota
Editorial Board
Lodewijk Baljon, Lodewijk Baljon Landschapsarchitecten,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Patrick Condon, University of British Columbia, Canada
M. Elen Deming, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Mark Francis, University of California, Davis
Peter Jacobs, University of Montréal
Douglas Johnston, Iowa State University
Eckart Lange, The University of Sheield
Robert Melnick, University of Oregon
Elizabeth Meyer, University of Virginia
Dan Nadenicek, University of Georgia
Joan Nassauer, University of Michigan
Linda Schneekloth, SUNY Bufalo
Stephen Sheppard, University of British Columbia, Canada
Anne Spirn, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Frederick Steiner, University of Texas, Austin
Simon Swaield, Lincoln University, New Zealand
Marc Treib, University of California, Berkeley
Ex officio
Patrick Mooney, President, Council of Educators in Landscape
Architecture
Susan M. Hatchell, President and Fellow, American Society of
Landscape Architects
Landscape Journal is peer-reviewed anonymously and published
twice yearly by the University of Wisconsin Press. Landscape Jour-
nal is listed in the Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, the
Architectural Publications Index, and Scopus.
Postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin, and additional mailing
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Landscape
Journal
Front cover View from Goldman Promenade looking towards
the Haas Promenade by Lawrence Halprin. Figure 17 in Halprin
in Israel by Kenneth Helphand.

4. Contents
iv Editor’s Introduction
1 John Beardsley Foreword
Articles
5 Marc Treib From the garden:
Lawrence Halprin and the modern landscape
28 Peter Walker Lawrence Halprin & Associates, 1954:
A brief memoir
33 Judith Wasserman A world in motion:
The creative synergy of Lawrence and Anna Halprin
53 Kathleen L. John-Alder A field guide to form: Lawrence Halprin’s
ecological engagement with Sea Ranch
77 Iain M. Robertson Replanting Freeway Park: Preserving a masterpiece
101 Ann Komara Water events: Flow and collection in Skyline Park
117 Alison Bick Hirsch Facilitation and/or manipulation?
Lawrence Halprin and ‘Taking Part’
135 Randy Hester Scoring collective creativity and legitimizing
participatory design
145 John G. Parsons The public struggle to erect the
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
161 Reuben M. Rainey The choreography of memory: Lawrence Halprin’s
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
183 Laurie Olin The FDR Memorial wheelchair controversy
and a ‘Taking Part’ workshop experience
199 Kenneth I. Helphand Halprin in Israel
219 Shlomo Aronson Lawrence Halprin: Another view
Reviews
227 Conference Reviews
234 Book Reviews
245 Manuscript Guidelines

5. Landscape
Journal
31:1–2
ISSN
0277-2426
©
2012
by
the
Board
of
Regents
of
the
University
of
Wisconsin
System
ABOUT THIS ISSUE
In the early 1960s Lawrence Halprin jumped the gar-
den wall and found nature and the city. From that time
until the closure of his oice in 2009, Halprin rein-
vented the scope, expanded the scale, and redefined
the practice of landscape architecture.
Having received manuscript submissions explor-
ing various dimensions of Halprin’s work and practice
shortly after his passing in 2009, the editors decided
to devote a special double issue of Landscape Journal
to the influence of Halprin on landscape architecture.
The issue examines not only the Halprin oice’s built
projects, but also the influence of his writings and con-
tributions to the processes by which landscape archi-
tecture has been practiced from the 1960s forward.
To guide the conceptualization and production of
the issue, we asked John Beardsley and Judith Was-
serman to serve as guest editors. Beardsley, Adjunct
Professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Design
Department of Landscape Architecture and Director of
Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, is
a scholar of the contemporary landscape and author of
several important books on art and landscape. Wasser-
man is Associate Professor in the College of Environ-
ment and Design at the University of Georgia and a
scholar of Anna Halprin’s work and of her influence
on her husband’s design approach and practice.
The publication was facilitated by a one-day collo-
quium at Dumbarton Oaks in December 2010 orga-
nized by John Beardsley and the Dumbarton Oaks
staf. Over the course of a day authors presented
their work-in-progress to each other and to a group of
invited guests, and received substantial commentary
from the group and from the issue’s editors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several institutions contributed essential resources to
the special issue, including:
Lawrence Halprin Collection, The Architectural
Archives at the University of Pennsylvania
The Environmental Design Archives at the University
of California, Berkeley
Anna Halprin Archives, Museum of Performance and
Design Archives, San Francisco
The National Archives
Wright Water Engineers Archive
Princeton Architectural Press
MIT Press
George Braziller, Inc.
In addition, many individuals contributed invaluable
material to the issue’s production, including Anna
Halprin for her personal photographs; John Kokoska
Photography, and authors Marc Treib, Shlomo Aron-
son, Judith Wasserman, Iain M. Robertson, Reuben M.
Rainey, Laurie Olin, Kenneth I. Helphand for sharing
personal photographs, documents, and drawings.
LN DP VD
Editor’s Introduction

6. Landscape
Journal
31:1–2
ISSN
0277-2426
©
2012
by
the
Board
of
Regents
of
the
University
of
Wisconsin
System A World in Motion
The Creative Synergy of Lawrence and Anna Halprin
Judith Wasserman
ABSTRACT Lawrence and Anna Halprin emerged in the
mid-20th century as major forces in their respective pro-
fessions. Lawrence enlarged the scope of landscape archi-
tectural practice to include participatory planning, project
work on multiple scales, and an emphasis on motion and
movement in design. Anna Halprin, noted dancer, chore-
ographer and teacher, established a unique pedagogy of
dance instruction that incorporated a holistic approach to
her art, promoting dance as a vehicle to create community
while enhancing physical and emotional wellness. The
Halprins embraced the explosive time and place in which
their work was positioned while fueling each other’s cre-
ative inquiries through interdisciplinary exchange. Law-
rence Halprin’s involvement with Anna Halprin’s dance
company, the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop (founded
in 1959), revealed new possibilities of design thinking
including approaches to site specific work, and design for
movement and performativity. Anna Halprin, in turn, was
exposed to the influence of designed and natural spaces
on human motion, which equally informed her art. The
couple’s collaboration led to the development of the RSVP
Cycles, Scoring, and refinement of their invented system
of design and movement notation, Motation. This paper
highlights influential experiences in the development of
their ideology and describes how their synergistic rela-
tionship fueled and enlarged the scope and possibilities
of each of their practices.
INTRODUCTION
Lawrence Halprin’s catalogue of professional work
spans over 60 years, and includes signature civic spaces
as well as urban and campus planning, estate design,
highway planning, and other works not readily rec-
ognizable as signature Halprin landscapes. As mod-
est landscape statements they still hold an imprint of
substantial design processes that incorporate motion,
movement, and community involvement. Some of his
pieces still inspire the cities in which they are located,
while others have been dismantled as irrelevant relics
of a bygone era. This examination is not a critique of
the success or failure of his built works, but rather a
distillation of the experimental ideas he developed to
invigorate design and planning processes.
Developing tools for organizing motion in land-
scape and dance, and using that system in creative
processes is one of the most noted aspects of Halprin’s
work. Halprin turned to this approach over and over
again to process the complexity of the world. In order
to adequately understand the depth and intention
of this method, and the theoretical basis of life and
work that he shared with his wife Anna Halprin, it is
critical to trace the roots of their philosophy, values,
and creative impetus. They wove a life together with
underlying value-laden ethics, scientific approaches to
knowledge acquisition, and the primacy of physical
motion to inform designed places. It is through the
creative interchange that their work was enlarged.
Anna Halprin’s unique approach to dance com-
menced at University of Wisconsin, under the tutelage
of dance educator Margaret H’Doubler. Anna was
immersed in a pedagogy that included self-awareness
through movement. Later involvement in the gestalt
psychological movement built of the foundation of
H’Doubler’s pedagogy. Lawrence Halprin, through
association, was equally informed by the dancer’s work.

7. 34 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
This interdisciplinary sensibility was later reinforced
when Lawrence Halprin attended Harvard’s Land-
scape Architecture program. Walter Gropius and the
Bauhaus ideals ofered a framework for Lawrence
and Anna to understand the collaborative potential of
dance and design.
The scientific approach was also key in Lawrence
and Anna’s ideology and art. Looking back to Law-
rence’s studies in botany reveals his knowledge of plant
structure and scientific methodology. Likewise, detail-
ing Anna Halprin’s deep knowledge of the skeletal
structure and human anatomy reveals the technical
grounding of their work, which is fundamental in
understanding their essential modernist reference to
the structure of nature and systems in motion.
Underlying this deep artistic and scientific inquiry
was a firm belief in a value-laden life, lived to promote
community ideals and equity. Lawrence and Anna
Halprin’s overarching ethical values ofers insight into
how these values proceeded to influence each of their
creative practices, particularly in how they situated
artistic production in the world. In surveying the roots
of their idealistic worldview as it stretched back to
their early education and experiences, this investiga-
tion connects their early training to their later produc-
tion. Lawrence Halprin through his involvement with
the Socialist Kibbutz movement (Halprin L. 2011,
18) encountered the heartfelt ideology of a pioneer-
ing Zionistic communitarian Socialism in pre-State
Israel. Together Anna and Lawrence Halprin received
training in the ethics of living a value-laden life
through participation at University of Wisconsin
Hillel, under the tutelage of Rabbinic scholar, Rabbi
Kadushin. Kadushin pared down Jewish law to a very
clear ethic of social responsibility (Halprin A. 2011).
The philosophical underpinning of Rabbi Kadushin’s
philosophy of “authentic Judaism” was a direct precur-
sor to Anna and Lawrence’s value framework (Kadu-
shin 1952). While at Harvard University (Bachelor of
Landscape Architecture, 1943) Halprin aligned himself
with the socialist ideals of Walter Gropius.
An examination of Lawrence and Anna Halprin’s
life together, ofers a framework to understand the
roots of their ideas. Each broke through boundaries
and engaged with pushing limits of creative explora-
tion. Their social ideology was a result of the time
and place at which they emerged onto their respective
professional scenes; the turbulent and experimental
San Francisco Bay Area of the 1960’s. Describing their
coming of age, at a time of growth, opulence, and
creative experimentation in California reveals how
the context itself allowed the couple to continually
test and experiment with their ideas. The Halprin’s
relationship, the influential people they had trained
under and worked with, and finally the rich ferment of
social change and unfettered growth in the burgeoning
and opulent Golden State, created their unique frame-
work of ideology and creative production. Through
an examination of the early roots of their ideas, and
their growth and development in creative interchange
through the years, this paper hopes to ofer insight into
the lives and work of Lawrence and Anna Halprin.
A World in Motion
Lawrence Halprin saw the world in motion. For him,
landscape architects hold a unique role amongst the
design professions, that of navigating through the
ephemerality of nature and the complexity of commu-
nities in order to lay out a process, and finally a design
to accommodate and invigorate fluidity, flexibility, and
a world in motion (Halprin L. 1961, 47). Lawrence
Halprin’s first hand knowledge of human motion,
performance possibilities, and the potential of spatial
patterns to support movement ideas emerged from
life experiences with his wife, dancer Anna Halprin.
This immersion in a world of explorative dance led
to an integrative design approach that foregrounded
movement-derived form. Multi-sensory elements are
designed into the work with visual and compositional
principles taking second place. Engaging movement
as the primary impetus in form-making has arguably
created spaces that invite movement, exploration, and
physical engagement.
This synergy between Anna and Lawrence Hal-
prin established a creative ferment that assisted in
pushing the boundaries of their respective careers
(Figure 1). By ofering unique solutions to each other’s
creative questions, Lawrence and Anna Halprin’s work
continually evolved, responding to each generational
epoch and its particular social and ecological concerns.
Development of the “score” process and the RSVP
Cycles (Resource, Score, Valuaction, and Performance)
became significant products of their investigations.
Lawrence dedicated the 1969 book, RSVP Cycles, Cre-
ative Processes in the Human Environment to her in
honor of their collaborative creativity (Halprin, 1969).

8. Wasserman 35
Their work was, and still is for Anna, in continual
evolution. It is specifically focused on invigorating
processes for engagement, inspiration, and interpre-
tation—a creative jam session of dance, landscape
architecture, and art.
Halprin established a scoring system based on his
concept of “Motation;” translated simply as a nota-
tional system focused on movement for the purposes of
environmental design. This was both an observation
and design tool, and essential to the broader frame-
work of his RSVP Cycles. Contemporaries of Halprin’s,
such as Kevin Lynch (1964), Gordon Cullen (1961),
and Philip Thiel (1961) also explored and wrote about
movement in the design process. Halprin noted their
work in his article, “Motation,” in Progressive Archi-
tecture (Halprin L. 1965).1
While Lawrence Halprin’s
movement work is situated within the milieu of ongo-
ing explorations of linkages between choreography
and design, he had a privileged understanding through
working with Anna and other experimental choreogra-
phers and musicians who were exploring new relation-
ships between notation and performance.2
Lawrence Halprin developed a complex scoring
process to handle complex layers of design informa-
tion. The Score was applied as a multi-purpose tool—
as a guide to community engagement, an approach to
laying out design proposals, and as a way to examine
specific elements in a project, such as sun angles,
fountain noises, and movement patterns. The RSVP
Cycles had evolved to assist Anna Halprin in com-
plex choreographic patterns (Halprin L. 1969). The
continual evolution of techniques to understand and
manipulate transient experiential data in design work
informed much of both Anna and Lawrence’s creative
processes and production. The Score, and its role in
the RSVP Cycles incorporates movement, motion, val-
ues and is applicable to ecology, community processes,
and personal growth.
DANCE, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND CIVIC
ENGAGEMENT
Lawrence built a space for Anna to teach, rehearse,
and practice dance while remaining close to her chil-
dren. The Dance Deck became a place for observing
movement and motion in their backyard (Figure 2).
The Dance Deck observations gave Lawrence a height-
ened understanding of contemporary innovations in
dance and performance art.
Prior to their move out to the Bay Area, and work
on the dance deck, both Lawrence and Anna had
encountered the idea that performance and dance were
not restricted to the theater, and that nature ofered a
stunning backdrop for the exploration of free dance.
Existing trees defined the shape of the deck, and cre-
ated a movement space influenced by the pattern of
nature (Figure 3). To aid in the creation of the dance
Figure 1
Anna and Lawrence Halprin in their early California years
(courtesy Anna Halprin).

9. 36 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
space, Lawrence hired Martha Graham’s lighting
designer Arch Lauterer to assist in the design and help
with the structural engineering.
While the design of the deck is not unusual within
the modernist outdoor California aesthetic, it was
an innovative solution to creating a dance studio on
the steeply-sloped lot. Dancing outside, with trees as
part of the dance environment, was transformative
for Anna and other professional dancers who moved
on her deck (Gerber 2009).3
A new dance experience
was created in the ability to explore the vastness of
exterior space in contrast to the traditional enclosed
studio (Figure 3). In a jointly written article published
in the 1956 Impulse: Annual of Contemporary Dance,
Lawrence and Anna commented on the influence of the
Dance Deck on their respective work. Lawrence states,
“. . . the deck was designed specifically for movement
experience. The space itself is alive and kinetic—It is
changeable—it invites movement—challenging it by its
own sense of movements” (23).
Following a detailed description of the sensual
qualities of nature surrounding the deck including
light quality, seasonal change, temperature—all influ-
encing the dancers movements—Lawrence Halprin
adds, “Dance here is only one of many moving ele-
ments” (Halprin L. and A. 1956, 24) (Figure 4). Anna’s
writing describes the experience of the deck from a
dancers perspective:
Figure 2
Plan drawing by Lawrence Halprin.
The decks programming specifies
spaces for particular types of
movements and theatrical effects,
rather then traditional criteria. It
describes the spaces as follows:
“1.General area used for strong, large,
active locomotor movement, 2. A
platform; where distance is required
and a space removed to set off
movement where the emphasis is on
design, 3. A quiet place, also for exits,
entrances, 4. Also for entrances and
waits, a sunken area having dramatic
possibilities, 5. Orchestra, or dance
platform, 6. Area for direct contact
with audience, 7. Elevated levels,
although basically a seating area, can
be effectively used as a stage set for
dance” (Halprin, Lawrence and Anna
1956, 25).
Figure 3
Dancers on the Dance Deck (courtesy
Anna Halprin).

10. Wasserman 37
How does this out-of-doors affect dancing? . . .
Since there is ever changing form and texture and
light around you, a certain drive develops toward
constant experimentation and change in dance
itself. In a sense one becomes less introverted, less
dependent on sheer invention, and more out going
and receptive to environmental change. . . .
The second major fact is the spatial structure
of the deck itself. This is a powerful influence. The
non-rectangular form of the deck forces a complete
re-orientation on the dancer. The customary
points of reference are gone. . . . Movement within
a moving space, I have found, is different than
movement within a static cube (24).
Famed dancers, such as Merce Cunningham,
remarked on the freedom of getting out of the studio
to dance in nature, and in particular, dancing on a
space with multiple fronts (Ross 2004, 54). The Dance
Deck was intentionally developed as an extension of
the identity and space of the house and as a place for
collaboration. Lawrence Halprin wrote, “We felt this
linkage would symbolize our life—living and working,
learning and growing together” (Halprin L. 2011, 79).
The sensory quality aforded the dancers on the
deck is vast, including light filtering through the trees,
the distinctive Northern California scent of pine and
eucalyptus, sounds of bird calls, and the feel of air
brushing skin reflecting changes in wind direction. All
Figure 4
Anna Halprin dancing on the deck, integrating movement with
the shadows and light of the natural environment (courtesy Anna
Halprin).
Figure 5
The Dance Deck today (courtesy Judith Wasserman).

11. 38 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
Figure 6
Anna Halprin in the 1957 exploratory dance Hanger, testing the
limits of balancing on a structure (courtesy Anna Halprin).
Figure 7
Climbing structure designed by Lawrence Halprin for the
Dancers Workshop performance of Parades and Changes
(courtesy Anna Halprin).
of these induce a heightened sensitivity to space and
motion (Figure 5).
Lawrence Halprin observed the dancers, creating
gesture drawings of bodies in motion. He incorporated
multiple ideas into his work based on the observation
of dancers and Anna’s instruction in expressive move-
ment (see Halprin 1972, 169–178 for detailed imagery
on Lawrence Halprin’s experiential drawings of Anna
and her dancers). Unlike much of landscape architec-
tural practice, Lawrence claimed that his works were
not focused on the visual; instead he insisted that the
designs privileged multi-sensory experiences, as places
for motion, movement, and physical awareness.
Out of the Theater and Into the Streets
Anna Halprin became widely recognized in the
burgeoning genre of performance art. One of the
hallmarks of that movement was challenging the tra-
ditionally defined roles of performer and audience. In
the Five Legged Stool (1962–1963, San Francisco and
Zagreb), Esposizione (1963, Venice), and Parades and
Changes (1965, Stockholm), dancers broke through the
proscenium arch (Halprin, A. 1975, 20–22). Not only
did dancers enter from the audience, but once on stage
they performed routine daily rituals, challenging the
idea of performance itself. In Esposizone, a cargo net
was stretched on the stage. Dancers, in climbing back

12. Wasserman 39
and forth violated and blurred boundaries of audi-
ence and performer space. In doing so, the traditional
observer/observed construct was dismantled.
Anna’s Dancers Workshop often took to the
streets of San Francisco to perform. The topography
of the San Francisco landscape became the subject of a
piece in 1953, People on a Slant where dancers tested
body movement against slope. The Dancers Workshop
also explored spaces under construction, such as their
1957 exploration of an airport hanger under construc-
tion at the San Francisco Airport to examine the skel-
etal steel structure, creating the dance piece Hanger
(Figure 6). Lawrence gained a deep knowledge of the
potential of the human body to navigate, scale, and
traverse structures in urban environments. In observ-
ing Anna Halprin’s work, Lawrence recognized that
movement through space could be patterned, choreo-
graphed, and changed. This awareness was furthered
through Lawrence’s involvement in constructing sets
for the Dancers Workshop, such as the jungle gym-like
structure for dancers to climb on, tilt, and swing on
in Parades and Changes (1967) (Figures 6, 7). A few
years later, in concert with sculptor Kerru Bruegging,
he built the steel space structure for Manhattan Square
Park in Rochester, New York entitled Tribute to Man.
This ofered the potential for park users to climb
throughout, and is notably similar in form and func-
tion to Anna Halprin’s dance sets (Figure 8).
Exploring and exploding these boundaries was part
of the performance vocabulary of the 1960s. Avant-
garde artist, poets, and others engaged in performance
art and street theater tried new paradigms of perfor-
mance and performativity. When Anna’s dance com-
pany did so they acted in a way that created “writing
and performing spaces through their embodied move-
ments and animations of the landscape” (Merriman
2010, 430). The Dancers Workshop included perfor-
mance, education, human growth and awareness, audi-
ence involvement, promoting a “life-style of movement”
which takes the form of an “. . . innovative theater which
aims to merge societal and aesthetic confrontations”
(Halprin A. 1975, 3). Lawrence was privy to a first hand
look at the potential of urban space to support and
enhance performance, as well as the range of movement
possibilities in diferent architectural typologies.
While some audiences reacted against these exper-
iments in dance, these works were turning points in
experimental theater. During the run of these perfor-
mances, Lawrence’s proposal for Lovejoy Plaza trans-
formed from a traditional modernist form into a much
more drastic series of angles (Ross 2009, 19). The new
design ofered multiple stage settings that would invite
both viewing and performing: the audience and per-
former were one. In his Notebooks Lawrence Halprin
declared his intentions for Lovejoy to be a place for
active performative and artistic use (Halprin L. 1972,
181). In a 1970 review of the fountain sequence and
Halprin’s intent, Ursula Clif wrote:
Platforms and flights of steps overhanging the
water invite the observer to action; in fact, because
they so clearly suggest a stage setting, they invite
Figure 8
Space frame structure in
Manhattan Square Park in
Rochester revealing motion
and movement in the stairs.
When first built, visitors
were allowed to experience
the site through climbing up
in this structure (courtesy
Judith Wasserman).

13. 40 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
play-acting. Halprin intends the passerby to accept
the invitation: in his view the best environment is
one which turns the spectator into a participant. He
has referred to the platforms in Lovejoy Plaza as
stages for “living-rituals.” (60).
This performative work also drew heavily on Anna
Halprin’s directives. Like Anna’s dance troupe, partici-
pants in the fountain encounter a space that is fluid and
dynamic, and not “fixed” or finished. Users are invited
to be part of the process of its success. Lawrence Hal-
prin felt his designs were only complete when people
participated and used the space. A review of Halprin’s
Portland work notes that, “For years . . . Lawrence
Halprin has been trying to transfer some of the prin-
ciples of improvisational theater and environmental art
into the design of public spaces” (Architectural Forum
1970, 56), and describes the event at the daily ritual
of turning on the fountain, where “. . . crowds, some-
times including busloads of school children, collect at
the appointed time and cheer when the water begins
to move” (58). This fountain-as-performance-art
clearly approaches his intent of landscape supporting
theatrical experiences, but also becoming a piece of
urban theater. In 2008 during the tribute community
event The City Dance of Lawrence and Anna Halprin,
this use was realized through dance (Figures 9 and 10).
Since Lawrence was surrounded by dancers, he
framed his own work accordingly. In describing the
landscape architect’s role on a planning team in a talk
at the International Federation of Landscape Archi-
tects (IFLA 1961) Lawrence remarked that unlike
architects or planners, landscape architects take on
the role of “design choreographers” with a kinetic
approach to movement through the landscape (Hal-
prin L. 1961, 47). In his book Cities, Lawrence Halprin
further illuminates motion as a design element.4
For
the most part, the work ofers a traditional typology
of urban spaces and a catalogue of urban elements.
However the last chapter, “Choreography,” departs
from normal observation, and instead enters in the
realm influenced by Anna. “Choreography” examines
human movement through space. He was fascinated
with the complexity of perceiving space and objects at
diferent speeds. As someone walks through a city, he
observed, buildings move slowly past, and “[t]he cross
Figure 9 and 10
Performance at Lovejoy Fountain by choreographer Linda Austin
during the participatory community arts event The City Dance of
Anna and Lawrence Halprin in 2008. Dancers are using the space
as Lawrence Halprin intended—as a performative space in which
to engage with physically (courtesy Judith Wasserman).

14. Wasserman 41
movements and staccato qualities arise only from other
pedestrians who establish movement patterns on their
own. The crisscross sense of overlapping comes mainly
from these opposings and crossings, and they create
eddies of motion, like water currents in a river” (Hal-
prin L. 1963A, 193).
Lawrence delineated numerous ideas related to
motion in cities including how a variety of pedestrian
movement speeds can be choreographed through urban
form and pavement textures. The detail with which he
regards this human motion is clearly influenced not just
by his observations of landscapes but also by his work
with Anna Halprin and her dancers. He observed not
only individual diferences of human movement, but
cultural diferences as well (Halprin L. 1963A, 193).5
He introduced the idea of car choreography and an
early attempt at “Movement Notation,” noting that a
kinesthetic approach to design is required:
Since movement and the complex interrelations
which it generates are an essential part of the life
of a city, urban design should have the choice of
starting from movement as the core—the essential
element of the plan. Only after programming
the movement and graphically expressing it,
should the environment—an envelope within
which movement takes place—be designed. The
environment exists for the purpose of movement
(Halprin L. 1963A, 208–209).
This idea is developed further, in Freeways, a
straightforward examination of historical and contem-
porary automobile movement systems through rural
and urban spaces. Lawrence was part of a team of
important landscape architects, architects and planners
commissioned by the Federal Highway Administra-
tion to report on highways (Rapuano et. al. 1968).6
The work included notable commentary on the idea of
movement, variations of movement speed, and qual-
ity of freeway motion through the landscape, likely
attributed to Lawrence’s influence. Practicing landscape
architecture during the 1960s boom in highway and
freeway development ofered Lawrence an opportunity
to apply his knowledge of motion and his attendant
practice of deriving form through a motional choreo-
graphic system at a large scale. Lawrence writes that
while the country roads ofer an expression of topo-
graphic change “like a great free-flowing painting” the
delight in the urban highway overpasses exist as “vast
and beautiful works of engineering. . . . not mere
abstract concepts but a vital part of our every day expe-
riences” (Halprin L. 1966, 17). To illustrate the connec-
tion of road to movement, the book contains a series
of stop frame photography showing Anna Halprin
experiencing and interpreting the space in a freeway
underpass through dance (see Halprin 1966, 20–21).
Lawrence uses Freeways as a forum to promote
his unique approach to design and visualization. He
repeatedly emphasized that driving on diferent types
of roadways to experience the diferent variations in
tempo, patterns, and rhythm was the way to under-
stand the design of the vehicular movement systems
(Halprin L. 1966). He argued that highways, whose
sole purpose is to move vehicles from one place to
another, have been designed based on static form
principles. Instead, Lawrence, writes that “. . . choreo-
graphic devices to register movement quality, character,
speed, involvement with mobile (or static) elements . . .”
are essential to highway design (Halprin L. 1966, 87).
Freeways contains an early exploration of graphic
notational systems, as a means of freeway design, that
described both the experience of a moving automobile
and shifting landscape forms. This early version of the
notational system reveals his Navy experience. Pat-
terned after the Navy navigational systems, the graphic
representation of moving object is static, while that
of the landscape is transitory. To further explain this
idea, Lawrence shows images of dancers on the Dance
Deck, with one of his notational systems, and then
follows with a sequence of images of a highway trip,
with an abstract description of the trip in Motation
format (Halprin L. 1966, 87–89). At the same time he
was exploring Motation for design, he developed tools
for Anna to graphically represent her complex chore-
ography, so dancers could both visualize the ideas, and
understand the framework through time.
For Lawrence, awareness of design and motion in
the landscape manifested itself in multiple temporal,
scalar, and material combinations. Notes he wrote
to be included in a 1959 Architectural Forum article,
“Landscapes Between Walls” muse on the potential of
water in the landscape. He equates water movement
with “. . . a small choreography to be watched like the
movement of distant figures on a stage” (Halprin, L.
1959). Lawrence describes the multiple possibilities of
choreographing this motion and the potential to create

15. 42 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
a wide variety of textures, microclimates, and sounds
through fountain design. These ideas were later
incorporated in many of his principal urban works,
including the Overhof-Halprin fountain at the 1962
World’s Fair (now the Seattle Center) for which spray
was scored and choreographed (Figure 11). The score,
which reads like the paper-roll of a player piano, deter-
mines which jets spray at any given moment in time.
Sound was also scored and designed into fountain
work. In Portland, Oregon, Halprin choreographed
the subsurface textures of the Auditorium Forecourt
Fountain (now the Ira Keller Fountain) to modulate
the flowing water, creating complex surface textures
and sounds. At the Lucasfilm Letterman campus in
San Francisco, fire hoses were employed to test out
particular stone patterns in the stream to create an
appropriate timbre and resonance as the water wends
down the site.
Structural Approach to the Creative Process: Anatomy
and Ecology
Anna Halprin maintains a skeleton for reference in
her studio. During class she refers to the skeleton
and manipulates it to demonstrate range of move-
ment (Figure 12). She presents dancers with a studied
understanding of the specific interactions of joints
and muscles in determining motion possibilities and
has codified movements of the human body as part
of her dance instruction in a chart she created and
later published in her book Movement Ritual (1975).
This typology allows for a systemized codification of
her movement innovations. To resist viewing move-
ment as “fixed” or overly directive, Anna has stated
that her work allows each dancer to adjust particular
movement patterns. Not only do these patterns ofer
a greater kinesthetic awareness to the practitioner,
Anna asserts that this awareness can lead to deeper
psychological understanding and spiritual growth
(Halprin A. 1975, 5; Burns 1975, 3). Through a dance
form focused on the structure of the human body, and
the anatomical and kinesiological possibilities of the
body, a universal dance form is possible (Halprin A.
1981, 15). Nudity in Anna Halprin’s dance work has
both expressed a biological fact and an opportunity to
express emotional honesty and connection. In Parades
and Changes, the first public dance performance that
explored the nude body, dancers intentionally dressed
and undressed in front of the audience as if in a trance,
a daily ritual framed by performance. The theatrical
climax involved ripping large sheets of kraft paper
under red lights. Paper and human form meshed, creat-
ing elemental fire imagery (Figure 13).
Lawrence Halprin also used his biological train-
ing and approach to inform his views on cities and
urban design. At numerous professional presentations
he equated the city to a biological community.7
He
routinely presented papers on environmental think-
ing in landscape architecture and urban design, such
as “Wilderness in the City” at a 1963 San Francisco
Wilderness Conference, and “The Role of Natural Sci-
ence in Environmental Design” in 1965 at the Univer-
sity of Southern California (LHA nd). He argued that
not only are cities set in an ecosystem, they replicate
ecosystem patterns. Economic and physical growth
patterns can be interpreted using ecological theoreti-
cal models, and terms can be equally applied to urban
patterns as to ecological, including ideas of climax
conditions, disclimax, and change. His series of writ-
ten works on landscape typologies, such as Cities
(Halprin, L. 1963) and Freeways (Halprin, L. 1966)
Figure 11
An example of one type of scoring
pattern—Lawrence Halprin’s score
for the Overhoff-Halprin 1962
World’s Fair (image from The RSVP
Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human
Environment by Lawrence Halprin.
Reprinted by permission of George
Braziller, Inc., New York. All rights
reserved).

16. Wasserman 43
adopted a taxonomic approach of categorizing and
sorting elements, such as the chemical periodic table or
the Linnaean plant classification system. For example,
Cities, methodically delineates categories of urban
space including the garden, street furnishings, urban
floor textures, natural systems, and hidden spaces, as
well as choreographic movement. Freeways, while less
categorical, analyzes the construction typologies of
freeways in the context of historic and contemporary
problems associated with their construction.
His scientific understanding also privileged an
overall ecological approach to design. In The RSVP
Cycles he stresses: “I see the earth and its life processes
as a model for the creative process, where not one
but many forces interact with each other with results
emergent—not imposed” (Halprin 1969, 3). In New
York, New York, Halprin and consultants8
“major
recommendation of the report,” was creating complex-
ity, something they considered to be the most impor-
tant need of a healthy city (LHA 1968, 107).9
This
idea of complexity follows an eco-system model; the
Figure 12
Anna Halprin examining a skeleton and using drawing as a tool to
understand human anatomy (courtesy Anna Halprin).
Figure 13
Image from Parades and Changes, first presented in 1965
(courtesy Anna Halprin).

17. 44 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
most diverse systems maintain stability and health. He
writes: “Sterility and simplicity are not only enervating
psychologically but they are biologically unnatural as
well” (LHA 1968, 108).
The Beats, Gestalt, and Social Transformation
The social and cultural worldview in which the Hal-
prins operated neatly aligned with early 1960s Bay
Area culture as it exploded into a time of activism
and experimentation. This “great awakening in the
Bay Area” (Bloom 2010), as Anna Halprin termed it,
aligned with their experiential approaches to artistic
production and collaborative input in design, planning,
and performance creations. The human psychologi-
cal movement of gestalt was gaining popularity in the
1960s, and gestalt psychologists Fritz Perls and Paul
Baum became involved with the work of the Halprins.
Anna Halprin participated in group therapy with Fritz
Perls, and Perls, in turn, became involved in processing
the emotional content of The Dancers Workshop (Hal-
prin A. 1981, 15). The psychological impact of “letting
go,” reaching a peak of expressive emotion in order to
release it, and honestly confronting oneself and others
became a hallmark of their individual work, and inte-
gral to the Take Part workshops.
Anna used gestalt in her dance performances,
and Lawrence used gestalt-oriented processes in his
Take Part community workshops. They believed that
encouraging participants to confront their fears and
psychological blockages, while getting in touch with
emotions, led to a deeper community visioning process.
These psychological ideas were acknowledged and
designed into the process. In a guidebook to the Take
Part process he details a specific psychological way of
listening during a community input session, describing
the fine tuned diferences between “. . . active listen-
ing, body language, and congruent sending”10
(LHA 1972, 24).
A common theme that ran through Anna and
Lawrence Halprin’s work is found in Baum’s idea
of involvement in a process to feel a commitment to
that process. Lawrence Halprin cited Baum’s psy-
chological ideas as important factors in urban design
expressing his desire to leave elements in his project
unfinished so that communities can complete them,
making them their own. He believed that with the
rise of public housing and increasing urban vandal-
ism, leaving spaces unfinished, just as Anna Halprin
left her choreography open ended, would lead to a
more responsible and committed citizenry. Through
this technique, care and stewardship of designed work
is insured through “actual physical participation in it”
(LHA 1968, 47).
Both Halprins were also involved in the Beat
scene as it moved into the 1960s San Francisco Hip-
pie movement. Anna regularly showed up at events
around San Francisco whose other performers were
included in some of the early “Happenings” and Acid
Tests. She recalled:
Allen Ginsberg was chanting his poetry on a
platform at one end of the Fillmore Auditorium.
Members of the Dancers’ Workshop were all
around the audience on balconies, painting one
another’s bodies in intricate, fluorescent patterns.
Allen finished chanting and the Grateful Dead began
to play. The dancers climbed down from the balcony
on ladders and in pairs . . . (Halprin A. 1995, 102)
Lawrence Halprin displayed a photograph of
the Merry Pranksters psychedelically decorated bus
Further, the subject of Tom Wolfe’s book The Electric
Koolaid Acid Test, as an example of the human attach-
ment to modes of transportation (Halprin L. 1966, 11).
The RSVP Cycles and the Take Park Workshops
Anna and Lawrence initiated the Experience in the
Environment and Kinetic Environment workshops to
further delve into the relationship of dance and design
within a participatory framework (Halprin, A. and L.
1966). This integration of movement and architectural
space hearkened back to their work at Harvard. The
first workshop occurred in 1966. Designers, danc-
ers, and other artists took part in the event carefully
crafted to assist designers in developing a height-
ened sensorial understanding of place, while danc-
ers learned to embrace the idea of place specificity to
determine movement patterns.
At the Experiment in the Environment Workshop,
a score guided participants out of their analytical
mindset, and invited them to investigate new ideas in
creative understanding and production. True to the
gestalt insistence on authenticity in sensory experiences,
limited information was provided ahead of time to
limit pre-thinking the event. These month-long events
occurred at three locations; the City of San Francisco,

18. Wasserman 45
Figure 14
Driftwood Village from an Experiment in the Environment Workshop.
Joint Summer Workshop, Driftwood Village Event, 1966. Photographer
unknown (Anna Halprin Archives. Museum of Performance and Design
Archives, San Francisco).
Figure 15
Dancers on the Dance Deck exploring structural potential of human
movement (courtesy Anna Halprin).
Figure 16
Dancers and architects exploring the structural potential of human the
human form. Joint Summer Workshop, Driftwood Village Event, 1966.
Photograph by Constance Beeson (Anna Halprin Archives, Box 41-46.
Museum of Performance and Design Archives, San Francisco).

19. 46 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
the Halprin’s home in Kentfield, and at Sea Ranch.
Each location contained specific instructions to guide
the participants. For example, at Sea Ranch a com-
munity building process of gathering driftwood was
structured to develop a collective village (Figure 14).
The 1966 workshop engaged dancers and archi-
tects participating in exercises to heighten sensory
awareness. Dancers created structural objects, and
architects used their bodies as architectural structures.
In an interview in Progressive Architecture reflecting
on the 1966 workshop, Anna Halprin noted how the
architects, with their knowledge of structure, were
able to create human sculptures using bodies as canti-
levers (1967, 133) Between the architects knowledge
of structures and Anna Halprin’s understanding of
the skeletal system, these human structures “. . . were
anatomically safe and sound” (Anderson 1966, 56)
(Figures 15, 16). The exploration deepened the dia-
logue between designers and dancers, and advanced
further understanding of the possibilities of human
motion in physical space. At a talk Lawrence gave in
the 1968 Halprin Summer Workshop, entitled Concept
of Space (Halprin L. 1968) he explains dance to the
designers, describing the body as an engineering mar-
vel. Exploring boundaries of dance into space, he notes
that, “Dance has been in spaces and has not developed
with it” (4) and “Dancers are in space and architects
have been enclosing it” (12). Through explaining and
making connections he recognized the opportunity to
use dance to inform spatial creation. In a draft of an
article to be published in Garten + Landschafts, par-
ticipant Hanno Henke, a landscape architect, wrote of
the benefits of the experience:
All of the experiences of the workshop helped me
to free my imagination and intensify my perception.
This has been of great value to me in my approach
to design because it allowed me to free myself from
thinking in terms of static pictures (Henke nd, 8).
Lawrence Halprin used these workshops as an
opportunity to deepen exploration of projects in
his oice. For example, motion and movement were
explored by the architects in a kinetic reconstruction of
San Francisco’s downtown Market Street, and resulted
in a design that Anna Halprin termed “absolutely
choreographic” (Anderson 1966, 56). Lawrence and
Anna’s emphasis on the internal experience of an event
or place, versus the outward appearance, directed
much of their design work and dance exploration.
Notably, articles about these events appeared both in
Dance Magazine and Progressive Architecture.
The Experiences in the Environment events were
highly influential in transforming ideas of “choreog-
raphy, participation, and collective exploration and
creativity” (Merriman 2010, 427). They were large
scale, long lasting (a month), and only available to
those who had the luxury to be involved. However
limited to a specific social group, they were instrumen-
tal for Lawrence Halprin in expanding and exploring
notions of participation, experiential learning, and
engagement in group processes (Figures 17).
At the time the Experiences in the Environments
were initiated, The RSVP Cycles were still in the for-
mative stage. The Workshops were structured through
the RSVP model, and in turn, informed refinement
of the model. Honing observation and environmental
awareness was a key goal of the scored directives.
Figure 17
City Dance event from 1979. An example of using the city, and
Lawrence Halprin’s fountain, as an event location. Fountain Dance,
City Dance ’79 (Photograph by Buck O’Kelly. Anna Halprin
Archives, Box 34 Folder 20. Museum of Performance and Design
Archives. San Francisco).

20. Wasserman 47
The RSVP Cycles ofered a fluid participatory
approach. Students of The RSVP Cycles have tended
to want to “fix” the process, interpreting it as a static
technique. Like many aspects of Lawrence Halprin’s
ideas and thinking, The RSVP Cycles had both a deep
ideology behind it, and a specific structure in place
to guide it. The structure allowed the incorporation
of multiple voices into process, and was facile enough
to handle planning, design, and dance choreography.
For Lawrence Halprin the process was in continual
evolution. In his writings, Halprin invites each user
to fashion and shape the process as they engage with
it, allowing it to evolve for each group and individual.
And finally, for Lawrence Halprin, the beauty of The
RSVP Cycles is that they could be applied across disci-
plines, towards any creative processes, and could ofer
a guidepost to life itself.
RSVP is derived from the French phrase respondez
vous s’il vous plais. As an invitation for participation,
the phrase fits the intent perfectly. Each letter in the
name represents a step in the process: R = Resource,
S = Score, V = Valuaction, and P = Performance. The
RSVP Cycles is similar to the standard design and
planning approach where: Resource = Inventory/
Analysis, Score = Design/Plan, Valuaction = Evalu-
ation, and Performance = Build/Implement. At first
glance, this comparison appears obvious. However,
changing the terminology is significant. In renaming
the steps, designers and planners cannot simply fall
back on the standard techniques, but instead must
reconfigure and recompose the process with the assis-
tance of the RSVP Cycles tool (Wasserman 2011).
This Workshop model was a unique form of plan-
ning and design education; an alternate school of sen-
sory immersion with the goal of understanding design
ideas and principles on a deeper level. They were criti-
cal for Lawrence and Anna in furthering their inter-
arts abilities, and as a way to refine their ideology of
processes leading to better design understanding.
These explorations relied on the ability of partici-
pants to take a month of from their regular lives to
engage in a process. However impractical in traditional
design practice, it allowed for a tremendous amount of
interdisciplinary exchange. Lawrence Halprin was able
to condense these explorations into his participatory
work, as they were the basis of the Take Part process
that he used in the design of the Charlottesville Mall,
and the City plan of Fort Worth, Texas amongst others.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Lawrence Halprin deter-
mined that the expansion of the profession of land-
scape architecture to solve real urban problems meant
re-educating the client. His goal was to change the
operating paradigm of the oice from pure landscape
architecture to “landscaping the mind instead of the
city” (Halprin L. nd). Doing so required both intensive
community involvement and extensive investment in
the process in order to assist a city in long-term vision-
ing. A New York Times article describes an attempt by
Lawrence Halprin and Associates to receive upwards
of $250,000 in grants to run weekly workshops for two
years to engage communities in the Upper East Side. In
doing so, “Upper East Siders and city planners would
grope, snif, listen, search, and taste their way together
through the neighborhood” (Blumenthal 1972). The
article describes the fact that these workshops emerged
out of the Experiment in the Environment events with
wife Anna, and finally, that this system would change
the nature of planning. Instead of the typical advo-
cacy win-lose model, co-workshop facilitator James T.
Burns emphasized that the aim of these Take Part
events is an idealistic win-win model of community
development (Blumenthal 1972).
Equity and Inclusion
The Experiments in the Environments and The San
Francisco Dancers Workshop were primarily engaged
with the white and relatively elite communities in the
Bay Area. The Halprins recognized the need for the
involvement of multiple communities to create a more
inclusive process. In New York, New York, Larry rec-
ommended empowering African-American neighbor-
hoods to determine housing and open space solutions:
What we need here, as it is elsewhere, is self-
determination and complete participation in all
phases of planning and programming. The black
community must, we believe, structure its own
renewal (Halprin L. 1968, 2)
At the same time Anna Halprin used dance as a
tool to engage the African-American community in the
Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Through these
eforts, the RSVP Cycle was further refined, and served
as a tool for cross-cultural communication. Anna’s
dance company was invited to perform for the Watts
community after the destructive riots. Rather than

21. 48 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
simply perform, she determined that she would use the
opportunity to repair and heal a community. Using
gestalt techniques and dance she worked towards
directly confronting racism and racial barriers. Her
goal was to craft a careful process for integrating her
dance company, reflecting later that she had “wanted
to do a production with a community instead of for a
community” (Munk 1995, 152). Anna taught the dance
Ceremony of Us to the two companies over a period
of five months. Once she brought them together in her
San Francisco studio to replicate the movement scores,
she observed the group dynamics and noted that com-
munication was diicult and strained. In an interview,
she described one of the challenges:
. . . we didn’t have a common language for
communicating. Our way of speaking, and our
language and our images were so different we
weren’t hearing each other. We didn’t know how
(Smith 1995, 17).
In order to facilitate a process of communication
and integration she worked closely with Lawrence in
mapping out a clear RSVP process. This challenge
tested the RSVP Cycles while also honing and refining
it as a model of communication. Lawrence credits The
RSVP Cycle in the dance piece as a tool to confront
“decades of assumptions, stereotypes, and biases. . . .
The whole concept was a call for social change” (Hal-
prin L. 2011, 136). For Anna, the system her husband
developed was essential to the success of working with
these two groups in a time of mistrust and revolution-
ary change:
At this time my husband Lawrence developed a
technology for collective creativity, described in
the book The RSVP Cycles. Essentially it’s a way that
maximizes diversity and reveals commonalities.
It’s a wonderful system that demystifies the hero/
artist by making visible the creative process. This
visibility encourages group participation and
involvement. It allowed our multi-racial company to
work together in a creatively positive atmosphere.
(Halprin A. 1981, 17)
Art and Design: The Ritual of Healing
Anna Halprin, as she evolved in her dance career in the
1970s and 1980s, turned her attention to the power of
dance for ritual and healing. In this way, she moved
beyond her early work with H’Doubler, transforming
the skeletal “natural” way of individual movement into
a spiritual and psychological connection with self. In
her book, Movement Ritual, Anna details what move-
ment means for her—both as exercise, but also as a
ritual for meditation and “a catalyst to get in touch with
myself emotionally as well as physically” (Halprin A.
1975, 5). Access to the inner physiology began under her
work with H’Doubler, and deepened through her own
explorations. The focus on healing catapulted when she
herself intuited a cancerous growth in her body, and
used dance and movement (in addition to traditional
medicine) as a way to cope and heal from the disease.
She used her personal struggles to engage with multiple
communities facing loss and illness, including oth-
ers dealing with cancer and people living with AIDS.
She formed the dance companies Positive Motion and
Women with Wings comprised of People with AIDS to
focus on pyscho-kinetic visualization for health. Her
recent investigations include working with the elder
community in developing dance scores so that all could
experience the benefits and joy of dance, such as in her
participatory dance, Seniors Rocking. She believes that
dance has the power to heal, is a creative force towards
change, and everyone is a dancer.
The Power of Stern Grove
Healing is also embedded in landscape architecture,
and Lawrence Halprin’s work is no exception. While
not explicitly framing his work in those terms, his
relentless ability and interest in bringing the sensory
qualities of nature into the urban fabric for all com-
munity members to enjoy is embedded in his design
process. While his earlier projects were exuberant
expressions of urban movement and experience within
a hard concrete shell, his later work took on a quieter,
more contemplative tone. Stern Grove, one of his last
projects, is a notable example.
Stern Grove Amphitheater, a theater space in San
Francisco redesigned in 2006, is a culmination of a
life of designing civic performance spaces. Delicately
embedded in the slope of the earth, the stonework sug-
gests seats, paths and multiple spaces for performance.
It is at once a theater and community park (Figures 18
and 19). A gift to his wife and the city of San Francisco,
the Grove ofers a space for community building. In
return, Anna created the performance Spirit of Place,

22. Wasserman 49
stating it was “something I wanted to do for Larry”
(Felciano 2009). This piece engages myth, ritual, and
spirituality in response to place. She transposed the
audience with the performers. Dancers frolicked on the
stone steps, while the audience was situated on or near
the stage (Figure 20). Community members walking
their dogs were invited to continue their path through
the performance. A sign situated at the entrance to the
space stated: “There is a performance going on. You’re
a part of it. Please continue” (Howard 2009). As one of
their final collaborative contributions, it ofers a lasting
tribute to community and placemaking, and the inte-
gration of dance and landscape architecture to create
places of meaning and identity, places of healing, and
places of movement and delight.
CONCLUSION
Anna and Lawrence Halprin established a life together
based on the exploration and examination of the
potential of artistic production to invigorate sensorial
appreciation of the world, to create community, and to
heal. Through their interaction and collaboration, their
Figures 18 and 19
Stern Grove Amphitheater, San Francisco, California (courtesy
Judith Wasserman).
Figure 20
Spirit of Place, a performance at Stern Grove Amphitheater
created by Anna Halprin for Lawrence Halprin (courtesy John
Kokoska).

23. 50 Landscape Journal 31:1–2
work deepened and expanded. Because of Anna, Law-
rence was continually exposed to human mobility, the
potential of motion, and the human need for celebra-
tory and performance spaces. Through assisting Anna
in set design, ideas for landscape structures evolved.
And by structuring her complex dance choreographic
directives, the RSVP Cycles was developed.
The couple sought and found parallels between
disciplines. Like dance, landscape is in continual
motion. More than any other design profession, a
landscape architect must choreograph the temporality
embedded in natural systems. Water patterns, plant
growth, continually transitioning sun angles, along
with the human motion, all need to be coordinated
and planned. Both Lawrence and Anna Halprin
rejected the Modern and Post-Modern labels categori-
cally placed on them. Instead, the scientific under-
pinning of creative investigation makes a continual
attempt to seek the essential forms of nature, human
anatomy and physiology, and the ecological struc-
ture of a human-defined and occupied nature. Living
and working within a landscape of sensory delight
informed their intent. Anna’s dancers opened their
senses to wind, scents, sun patterns, and textures
while practicing on the Dance Deck. In turn, Law-
rence choreographed experiential elements within his
projects to heighten awareness of the physical body in
space.
Both Lawrence and Anna Halprin were highly cre-
ative individuals. They landed in California at just the
right time, and embraced both the generational epochs
they lived in, as well as the landscape in which they set
up their home. Living and doing much of their work in
their specific place, Northern California, at a specific
time, the 1950s to the 2000s provided unique opportu-
nities to test ideas, and promote their ideology through
explorative process oriented creative production. In
each project Lawrence Halprin engaged, from free-
ways to urban parks, a heightened experiential quality
was created for the user from the rigor of his design
process. Like every professional designer, some of
Lawrence Halprin’s projects were more successful then
others in accomplishing his goals, and withstanding
time and change in the urban structure. The lessons
from the work of Anna and Lawrence Halprin lie in
their explorative process to make place in a world in
motion (Figure 21).
NOTES
1. Lawrence Halprin was very aware of efforts in examining
the problem of designing movement into static space and
his files include articles on the topic, including the 1966
Progressive Architecture’s article highlighting work that
examines “notation of sequential experience in cities” or
“Urbanography” (Noe and Abernathy 1966).
2. Many of his published works credit wife Anna Halprin with
inspiration and ideas. In the acknowledgement to the The
RSVP Cycles Lawrence states that: “. . . she had discussed
with me all the concepts in the book, many of which derive
from mutual work and many of which she has led me to
explore” (Halprin L. 1969, Acknowledgements)
Figure 21
Lawrence and Anna Halprin after
the performance of Spirit of Place
(courtesy John Kokoska).

24. Wasserman 51
3. Anna Halprin’s Dance Deck was a destination place for
many dancers from the East Coast. She claims that their
experience on the deck was transformative to them, intro-
ducing the idea of the post-modern dance experience that
they brought back to New York.
4. Procter Mellquist, editor of Sunset Magazine at the time,
noted that Halprin “. . . sees any city in terms of its life, its
changes. He sees a city as a continuum, a sequence of
events, a dance of life.” (from an advertisement for the
book) (Halprin L. nd).
5. While few designers were exploring cultural differences in
the use of space, Halprin acknowledges that Edward T. Hall
also discussed “ethnic and cultural relationships to space”
(Halprin L. 1968, 13)
6. The fellow participants in the study included Michael
Rapuanao, Thomas C. Kavanaugh, Harry R. Powell, Kevin
Roche, Matthew L. Rockwell, John O. Simonds and Mar-
vinR. Springer and led to the publication The Freeway in
theCity: Principles of Planning and Design.
7. The 1962 American Institute of Planners Conference in
Santa Rosa, the 1963 American Institute of Architects
Regional Conference in Tacoma, Washington, and the San
Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association (SPUR)
Conference in 1965 (Halprin L. 1962; Halprin L. 1963B).
8. The consultant team for the report included Jane Jacobs,
Paul Baum, Edward T. Hall and Tom Thorpe, as well as his
office staff.
9. Lawrence Halprin invented this term for the report as a way
to turn an idea into the active verb form, implying that it
is not only about a complex urban environment leading to
successful urban spaces, but that it needs active action to
make it so.
10. The descriptions of these different types of listening are as
follows; active listening is hearing what feelings people are
having, not necessarily the words used; congruent sending
is making your own feelings heard, rather than trying not to
“lay a trip on others” (26); body language is “reading” how
people are using their bodies, and the attitudes portrayed.
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AUTHOR Judith Wasserman is an Associate Professor
and Graduate Coordinator of Landscape Architecture
at the University of Georgia. Her research and teach-
ing focus on the interface of interdisciplinary creative
processes to inform landscape architectural design. Her
recent research centers on creating tools for invigorat-
ing motion and active spaces in the urban fabric. Profes-
sor Wasserman’s current investigation into the work of
Anna and Lawrence Halprin offers insight into creating
experiential landscapes for motion, community building,
and sensory delight.