Biographical and Professional Chronology
Sammis garden. Berkeley, 1939. Sketch.
[Courtesy Garret Eckbo ]
1910
28 November, born in Cooperstown, New York, to Theodora Munn and Axel Eckbo.
1912
Family leaves New York and moves first to Chicago, then to Alameda, California, where Eckbo spends his childhood.
1929
Spends six months in Oslo with paternal uncle, Eivind Eckbo, and changes attitude toward study and work.
1932
After working several years at various jobs, attends Marin Junior College.
1933
Enters the University of California at Berkeley and majors in landscape architecture.
1934
Designs Estate in the Manner of Louis XIV as a studio project, his last fascination with the formal garden.
1935
Graduates from Berkeley. Through the auspices of Professor John Gregg, Eckbo receives a position at Armstrong Nurseries in Los Angeles as a garden designer, where he plans almost one hundred gardens within a year.
1936
Submits competition for a scholarship to Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and wins first prize.
Enters Harvard University as graduate student in landscape architecture.
Bristles under the strictures of the Beaux-Arts doctrine and, with classmates James Rose and Dan Kiley, begins to explore science, architecture, and art as sources for a modern landscape design.
Shafter Unit. Pergola. Tulare Basin,
San Joaquin Valley, circa 1940.
Farm Security Administration.
[Documents Collection ]
1937
19 September, marries Arline Williams, sister of Berkeley classmate and future partner Edward Williams.
Continues graduate study, with classes in architecture under Walter Gropius—then department head—as well as in landscape design.
Designs Freeform Park and Small Gardens in the City as student projects.
Submits his master's thesis, Contempoville, an examination of the planned American suburb.
1938
Receives Master of Landscape Architecture degree.
Works for six weeks in the office of industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes on the General Motors Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Invited by Frederick Gutheim, works for the the United States Housing Authority designing prototypical recreation spaces and courtyards for public housing.
Publishes "Small Gardens in the City" in Pencil Points and "Sculpture & Landscape Design" in Magazine of Art .
1939
Returns to San Francisco.
Works for landscape architect Thomas Church for about two weeks.
Joins the western regional office of the Farm Security Administration [FSA ], engaged primarily in designing camps for migrant agricultural workers in California's Central Valley, in Arizona, and in Texas. Applies forefront modernist ideas to these settlements for one of the lowest strata of society.
With James Rose and Dan Kiley, publishes three articles in Architectural Record concerning society, ecology, and landscape architecture.
1940
Joins with brother-in-law, Edward Williams, to form Eckbo and Williams while still at the FSA . Executes some private commissions.
Gold garden. Los Angeles, early 1950s.
[Documents Collection ]
1942
Because of the lingering effects of a 1939 automobile accident, Eckbo exempted from military service.
As the FSA turns its attention to defense housing, Eckbo designs about fifty projects during his tenure with the agency.
Works for several weeks in a Sausalito shipyard.
1945
Robert Royston is solicited as a partner for Eckbo, Royston and Williams while still serving in the Pacific theater.
The practice is soon recognized nationwide for innovative and carefully detailed work.
Eckbo begins to spend one week a month in Los Angeles, drumming up work, designing, and supervising projects.
1946
The Eckbos move to Los Angeles, first living in San Pedro, then various locations in the city; rents office space from architect Robert Alexander.
The Eckbo, Royston and Williams practice booms, undertaking hundreds of residential gardens, planned community developments, landscapes for churches, office and commercial structures, and educational facilities. Widely published in professional and trade journals.
Publishes articles in Arts and Architecture and other magazines.
1948
Francis Dean becomes partner in the firm; practice now includes college campus design in addition to schools, parks, and private gardens.
Eckbo begins teaching in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California, continuing until 1956.
1950
Publishes first book, Landscape for Living .
1952
The Eckbos move to the Wonderland Park development in west Los Angeles; their house designed by Joseph van der Kar. Various schemes by Eckbo for the accompanying garden begin.
1956
Approached by ALCOA Aluminum to design a "display": the Forecast Garden, using aluminum in its many forms and patterns as the principal material.
Publishes The Art of Home Landscaping (reissued as Home Landscaping in 1978).
1958
Eckbo, Royston and Williams dissolved. Eckbo, Dean and Williams formed in the south; Royston, Hanamoto and Mayes in the north. Nature of the work begins to change, now engaged with more large-scale design and planning.
1959
Completes ALCOA Forecast [Eckbo] Garden late in the year. Massive publicity campaign follows.
1963
Returns to Berkeley to become chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, University of California at Berkeley through 1969.
Designs the conversion of vehicular Fulton Street in Fresno to a pedestrian shopping mall. Continues work on the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, which will extend over decades. Numerous other projects ranging from private gardens to major public commissions.
1964
Eckbo, Dean, Austin and Williams (later known as EDAW ) incorporated.
Publishes Urban Landscape Design .
1969
Publishes The Landscape We See .
1975
Receives the American Society of Landscape Architects' Medal of Honor.
1978
Becomes Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley.
Publishes Public Landscape: Six Essays on Government and Environmental Design in the San Francisco Bay Area .
1979
Leaves EDAW over differences in scope and type of work, and forms a series of smaller practices commencing with Garrett Eckbo and Associates. Major commissions include Shelby Farms, Memphis; Ojai General Plan; and environmental consultation with Saõ Paulo, Brazil.
1983
Forms Eckbo Kay Associates with Kenneth Kay.
1989
Reduces involvement in active practice, although continues to work on large-scale projects in California, Kuwait, and Japan.
1990
Phases out remaining design work, devotes more time to theoretical study and publication.
1996
Continues to write; book manuscript currently in press, People in a Landscape .