UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH CONVOCATION OCTOBER 17, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander O.C. F.C.S.L.A. F.A.S.L.A. B.C.S.L.A

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1 UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH CONVOCATION OCTOBER 17, 2015 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander O.C. F.C.S.L.A. F.A.S.L.A. B.C.S.L.A 1

2 Mister Vice-Chancellor Members of the board Senior administration Deans Faculty Family and friends and of course the graduands. It is a great honour and pleasure to be invited to address this Convocation ceremony. Hearty congratulations to all of you graduands of the Ontario Agricultural College, Ontario Veterinary College, including those students who are graduating in the field of Landscape Architecture. Congratulations also to your families who helped you to achieve this goal. You are graduating in the 2

3 electronic age; you are bombarded with images and sound beeps and apps throughout your day. You have studied at a school, which was founded a long time ago, after many years of deliberation. In 1956 I wrote in the Community Planning Review, that Canada should establish schools to train Landscape Architects where students are taught fundamentals of landscape design, contemporary architectural principles, a thorough understanding of site planning and site engineering, a knowledge of plant materials, and above all understanding of team-work. Landscape architects trained in this manner will achieve a status commensurate with its social importance. I continued to say that in the near future one of our Canadian Universities will establish a professional course in Landscape Architecture to train young men and women in a wide-open and very exciting field. 3

4 A few years later in 1965 it was the University of Guelph who established the first Landscape Architecture program. It was created on the foundation of the old Ontario Agriculture College. Victor Chanasyk was its first Director. Thus Landscape Architecture started to flourish at Guelph with many notable graduates, who were exposed to the best practitioners of that time. In 1983 the students had the pleasure to hear lectures by one of the great Landscape Architects of our time, namely Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, founder of the International Federation of Landscape Architects and great proponent of collaboration with other professionals. He taught us conceptual thinking before solving landscape problems. In 1965 Macklin Hancock prepared the University of Guelph Master Development Plan, thus the Campus became part of the skills of our profession. 4

5 Today all the fields of the graduands are well-established professions. However, new dimensions have entered all our work. 1. We have to learn to limit our footprint on a crowded planet. 2. We have to address climate change in all our work. 3. We have to find solutions to renew our connections to the land. How can we renew our connection with the land? We cannot undo the past but we must go forward. We have learned from the eminent scientist E.O.Wilson, author of Biophilia Hyposthesis who suggested that there is a biologically based, instinctive bond between humans and their environment. In short we all long to be surrounded by Nature, which is built into our genes. He further urges us: To preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while 5

6 we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity. All you graduands today are committed to protect the natural environment, which includes clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean soil to grow our food. Even as an 11 year old aspiring Landscape Architect, I dreamt of parks around cities. Today, this means urban forests, river parks, nature reserves, woodlands, accessible green roofs, and community gardens for food production. This requires the application of old and new environmental technologies to purify wastewater and restore disturbed sites with Native plants. In 1987 the Brundtland Report Our Common Future coined the word sustainability recognizing that environmental problems were global in nature and urging the United Nations to establish policies for sustainable urban development. This report profoundly changed my profession to building landscapes, which address environmental and 6

7 social responsibility. The most recent Report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that the warming of the climate system is unparalleled. The atmosphere and oceans have warmed and acidified, glaciers have receded on the Rockies. The amounts of snow and ice in the Arctic have diminished, and we suffer from unexpected floods, rising sea levels, tornadoes and forest fires. The concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased. Human influence on the climate system is clear. The scale of these environmental challenges demands that we alter our designs and attitudes towards the land. The planet is finite and land is a resource - not a commodity. My dictum for a long time has been achieving a fit between the built form and the land. Limiting our footprint on each site is of utmost importance. Building with recycled materials and zero-carbon guidelines should be legislated by our municipalities for all building sites. We must act now. There 7

8 is no time to lose. In all our professions, we must practice what I call the three R's on every project: Research, shouldering Responsibility, and Risk-taking. We need what I call "VIM" - namely Vision, Imagination, and Motivation in order to accomplish these goals in all our pursuits. It is up to you who are trained in the latest methods of our time - to help us achieve these goals. I count on you that you will be able to change the course of our lives on this planet, with new inventions and ideas. We must proceed carefully with my five P s namely Patience, Persistence, Politeness, Professionalism and Passion for all of us to live happily on this planet earth. The emphasis in the future will be to create public spaces, which protect landscape features such as hills and 8

9 watercourses and treat plazas and boulevard streets to allow for year-round recreation and activities. Each project balances the man-made and the natural environment by creating unity and harmony between buildings and their specific sites through well-thought-out design solutions, which can only be achieved through interdisciplinary teamwork of all professionals involved. Many years ago June 4, 1987, the eminent urban planner, housing expert and author Humphrey Carver received an Honorary Degree from the University of Guelph, in which he told us about the founding of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects and told us about our Profession. In Stage 1 he told about Garden Making. In Stage 2 he explained the making of pleasure gardens. In Stage 3 he called Explosion of People from the Cities and he said our most beautiful cities are at the end of the 4-lane highways, 9

10 and out there is wilderness. He urged us to look at big cities they must have green belts so that you can walk into the countryside, and he urged us to build garden cities in the open country, and called it the biological model of the growing organism. In this address Humphrey Carver bemoans the loss of Green Spaces for our replenishment. He concludes that we must find a way to get away from highways and automobiles into a wonderful wild garden. Today more than ever we must design for spaces, which allow for re-wilding to give pleasure to the users. Plant what you see should be the motto. In conclusion allow me to read a poem by one of Canada s Icons Emily Carr, which appeals to our five senses. 10

11 What seest thou? Cedar, pine, balsam, fir Straight and tall, pointing always to the blue sky, organized orderly form. Tangles of dense undergrowth smothering, choking, struggling, in the distance receding plane after plane, rising, falling - warm and cold greens, gnarled stump of grey and brown. What hearest thou? Whisperings, murmurings, now loud, now soft, the trees talking, squeakings, groanings, creakings, sometimes tree trunks chafing against each other, the saucy screech of blue jay, the kingfisher s clatter and the chatter of an occasional squirrel, resenting my intrusion. What smellest thou? The sweet smell of growing things, of moist earth and sunripening berries, the faint wildflower smell, the spicy smell of new pine growth and the dear smell of cedar when you crush it. What feelest thou? The reality of growth and life and light, the sweetness of Mother Nature, the nearness of God, the unity of the universe, peace, content. 11

12 What tastest thou? --- The full, pure joy of life... Emily Carr, Renfrew, August 14, Excerpted from: Tippet and Cole: From Desolation to Splendour: Changing Perceptions of the British Columbia Landscape Clarke Urwin & Company Limited, Toronto and Vancouver, So go forth into this world with joy and courage. THANK YOU 12