Getting the Dirt on Julie Bargmann

In October 2021, Julie Bargmann was named the inaugural winner of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, a biennial award established by TCLF in 2019 to recognize “a living practitioner, collaborative or team for their creative, courageous, and visionary work in the field of landscape architecture.” One month earlier, TCLF founder, president, and CEO Charles A. Birnbaum interviewed Bargmann as part of its expansive Pioneers of American Landscape Design^® Oral History Project. The resulting Julie Bargmann Oral History is made up of 25 short videos in three categories: Biography (10), Design (9), and Projects (6). The videos can be watched via the TCLF website or in the playlist on TCLF's YouTube page. Below is a taste: three videos, the first from each category, with brief commentary on what can be seen in those categories.

The ten videos in this section range from Bargmann's childhood in New Jersey and education at Carnegie Mellon and Harvard University, to teaching in Minnesota and Virginia and developing the path for D.I.R.T. (Dump It Right There) studio.

Industrial sites — the setting for many D.I.R.T. projects — are the focus of some of the nine videos in this category. They also touch on her love of plants, the importance of “action plans” over master plans, and the writings of her hero, Robert Smithson, among other things.

Our story on Bargmann winning the Oberlander Prize in 2021 was accompanied by images of Core City Park in Detroit and Urban Outfitters in Philadelphia. They are among the projects discussed in these six videos, which also include Bargmann's own Blue House in Charlottesville, the Vintondale Reclamation Park in Pennsylvania, and the Pump House in Dallas.