Cornelia Oberlander

Canadian landscape architect (1921–2021)

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander LL. D. (20 June 1921 – 22 May 2021) was a German born Canadian landscape architect. Her firm, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Landscape Architects, was founded in 1953, when she moved to Vancouver. During her career she contributed to the designs of many high profile buildings in both Canada and the United States, including the Robson Square and the Law Courts Complex in Vancouver, the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Chancery in Washington D. C., the Library Square at the Vancouver Public Library, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, and Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly Building in Yellowknife.

Oberlander was born at Muelheim Ruhr, Germany, the daughter of Beate (Jastrow) and Franz Hahn. She was the niece of educationalist Kurt Hahn, the founder of Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, Gordonstoun in Scotland, and UWC Atlantic College in the UK; as well as the niece of Elisabeth Jastrow, the German born American classical archaeologist. A horticulturist who wrote gardening books for children, Beate Hahn fostered in her daughter a deep love and appreciation for nature from a young age. Since she had a garden bed when she was four years old and planted peas and corn, she knew the joy of growing. In an interview with Mechtild Manus, tracing the roots of her interests in landscape architecture, Oberlander stated:<blockquote>"At the age of eleven I studied a mural in the artist's studio showing the river Rhine and an imaginary town. When I asked the artist about the green spaces in this mural, she told me that these were parks. When I came home, I told my mother 'I want to make parks'. From there all my education was directed towards becoming a landscape architect." Her mother had a truck farm in New Hampshire during the war, which Oberlander worked on. She had come to America with the hopes of exploring the professional educational opportunities that involved the creation of parks and green spaces, and pursued that objective in American colleges.

In 1944 Oberlander was awarded a BA degree from Smith College and, in 1947, she was among the first class of women awarded degrees in landscape architecture by Harvard. In her interview with Jenny Hall she stated, "When I went to Smith, women who wanted to become landscape architects went to the Cambridge School, a part of Harvard University, because at that time, women could not attend Harvard. But with the war that changed, and in 1943 I was one of the very first women to be admitted to the Harvard Graduate School of Design." She met her future husband, Peter Oberlander at a class picnic. Born in Vienna, he also had fled with his family from the Nazis in 1938. He was awarded a Ph. D. in regional planning from Harvard. Oberlander began work with Louis Kahn and Oscar Stonorov in Philadelphia and then with landscape architect Dan Kiley in Vermont. She married her husband in 1953. They moved to Vancouver and had three children. She founded a small landscape architecture firm in Vancouver. Oberlander then became interested in the modern art movement led by B. C. Binning and Ned Pratt, which combined art and architecture to address the connections between urbanism and surrounding natural settings. The early years of Oberlander's independent practice were dedicated to designing landscapes for low income housing projects and playgrounds, the most famous of which is the Canadian Government Pavilion, Children's Creative Centre and play area for Expo 67 in Montreal. Her first playground, for a 1951 public housing project for architect Louis Kahn, included a vegetable garden and a fruit tree. For public housing in Maclean Park, she designed a playground. On Skeena Terrace, on the Lougheed Highway, she included vegetable gardens. She later practiced on a more commercial scale, working with architects and other professionals from various disciplines to create aesthetic solutions for challenging projects. Before beginning a project she researched it thoroughly to ensure that her innovative schemes would be practical and long lasting. Oberlander always approached a project from an environmental standpoint. In her Convocation Address for the acceptance of an honorary degree from Simon Fraser University she stated:

I dream of Green Cities with Green Buildings where rural and urban activities live in harmony "Achieving a fit" between the built form and the land has been my dictum. This can only be done if all our design related professions collaborate and thereby demonstrate co operatively their relevance in meeting the enormous developmental challenges facing our increasingly crowded urban regions. Her concern for the environment and for people in general, was further exemplified by her involvement with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on Mount Scopus. Oberlander and her husband, Peter, visited Israel for a congress with the International Federation of Landscape Architects in 1962. According to the Jewish Independent, the Oberlanders were in Israel to study irrigation systems, but they "fell more deeply in love with the land and its people". The Oberlanders engaged in and spearheaded many activities to benefit the university from 1979 on, including: setting up a Canadian Studies Program, bringing boxes of Canadian textbooks to Israel for donation to the university, developing a botanical garden, working with a team of planners to assist the community of Ashkalon in accommodating settlers from North Africa and Georgia, and advocating for the restoration of historic buildings on the campus. The Oberlanders were honored for their contributions by the Vancouver chapter of Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2004 and they visited Israel many times in their philanthropic efforts. In 1999–2000, she contributed her expertise to the Vancouver Art Gallery for its "Out of This Century" exhibition, guiding patrons through the selection of visual art pieces that were chosen from the permanent collection of the gallery (by Oberlander and five other Vancouverites) to reflect and represent the city art scene through the decades. Peter Oberlander died on 27 December 2008.