This memory of Cornelia Oberlander was from my visit on March 26, 2011. Cornelia passed away at 99 leaving a legacy of sustainable landscapes and youth mentorship.
Susan Chung
Visited Cornelia Oberlander, the "Grande Dame" of Canadian landscape architecture. She'd been helping out at my school and wanted to catch up on a garden project. Cornelia has a reputation for being charming, gracious and immovably persistent. These traits are useful: she sometimes faced bureacratic hurdles as a pioneer of sustainable landscape architecture. There is a bit of the rebel in Cornelia that helps her to connect with youth and we were very grateful to have her come and speak to youth at the Sustainable Design Ideas Fair.
Thinking about David Owen's Lecture, I asked Cornelia about her thoughts on dense urban centres and biodiversity: "Is it possible to merge density with ecological design?"