Episode 35: Carol R. Johnson
Carol Roxane Johnson was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 6, 1929. Carol received an English degree from Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1951. After graduating, Carol and a friend traveled Europe visiting both manicured and untouched landscapes in Brussels, England, and France. She returned to the states and after completing some odd jobs, Carol attended Harvard GSD and completed her degree in Landscape Architecture in 1957. Briefly Carol would work at The Architects Collective (TAC) before establishing her own firm Carol R. Johnson Inc. (later named Carol R. Johnson & Associates). Carol worked on projects like the Chevron Oil Refinery in Perth Amboy, NJ as well as site reclamation for the bell station on Lake Cayuga in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York in 1981. A lot of her projects were large-scale public projects that required some sort of environmental remediation. Her other more famous project was the John F. Kennedy Park along the Charles River. In addition to working on large-scale projects, from 1966- 1973 Carol taught at her alma mater the Harvard GSD. She would later teach at a school in Taiwan, which led her to work on international projects. In 1982 Carol would become a fellow at the American Society of Landscape Architects. In 1998 she was the first woman to receive the ALSA Medal. Due to Alzheimer’s complications, Carol passed away on December 11th, 2020 at her house in Maine. She was 91 years old.
Caryatid: Gina Ford, FASLA
Gina Ford is a landscape architect, principal, and co-founder of the Boston-based architecture firm Agency Landscape + Planning. She teaches at and was a Harvard GSD grad just like Carol. In fact, while at Harvard, Carol taught Gina! Gina has received the Harvard GSD's Eliot Traveling Fellowship, the Wellesley College's Shaw Fellowship, and several awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the American Planning Association, and more!
References
Hichins, Stephen. “Landscape Architect Carol Johnson’s Influence on the Contemporary Redesign of Paris - DesignCurial.” Design Curial, 5 July 2021, www.designcurial.com/news/carol-johnson-landscape-architecture-paris-redesign-8821484.
Hickman, Matt. “Pioneering Landscape Architect Carol R. Johnson Passes Away at 91.” The Architect’s Newspaper, 15 Dec. 2020, www.archpaper.com/2020/12/landscape-architect-carol-r-johnson-passes-away-at-91.
Marquard, Bryan. “Carol R. Johnson, Who Founded a Pioneering Women-Led Landscape Architecture Firm, Dies at 91.” BostonGlobe.Com, 28 Jan. 2021, www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/26/metro/carol-r-johnson-who-founded-pioneering-women-led-landscape-architecture-firm-dies-91.
“Remembering Carol R. Johnson | The Cultural Landscape Foundation.” The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 14 Dec. 2020, www.tclf.org/remembering-carol-r-johnson.
Sickle, Mary Alice van. “Carol R. Johnson | The Cultural Landscape Foundation.” The Cultural Landscape Foundation, tclf.org/pioneer/carol-r-johnson. Accessed 28 Sept. 2021.
“Big Dig: Measuring the relative importance of applying engineering solutions to urban traffic intersections: a planning perspective - Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Bostons-Big-Dig-which-provided-Boston-with-a-new-highway-system-that-has-made-zipping_fig1_328108697 [accessed 28 Sep, 2021]
Carol R. Johnson’s Autobiography “A Life in The Landscape”.
