Visit of the Villa van Buuren garden in Uccle, © Blanchon
Explore the IFLA 75 research project, an insightful journey into the formative years of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) and the broader history of the landscape architecture discipline.
The 75th anniversary of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) in 2023 made it timely to launch a collaborative research project titled “IFLA 75: Uncovering Hidden Histories in Landscape Architecture”.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the project dealt with the history and legacy of IFLA and the profession’s approaches in the period from the 1960s to the 1980s and, at the same time, aimed to raise awareness of the importance of landscape architecture archives. Between November 2022 and November 2024 a series of online and in-person workshops and public events brought together different players—from academic institutions, archives, professional bodies, and practitioners. In addition, the steering group chaired a session titled “Histories and Networks: A Shift in Historiographical Perspective” at the IFLA world congress in 2023, which discussed the impact of professional networks like IFLA and “The Men of the Trees” on establishing and fostering the profession in countries like Portugal and China and on advancing a global perspective.
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
A total of four workshops have been organized by different hosts within the IFLA 75 project. Two of them took place on-site—one at the CIVA Foundation in Brussels and one at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading—and included a tour through the archives and the museum collections. The Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in Ås organized an online workshop and a symposium, and BOKU University in Vienna held a design course together with the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) in Budapest.
The workshops, presentations by the project team and external partners, and additional in-depth research of archival documents have revealed new insights into the founding years of IFLA and the profession of landscape architecture itself. The project shows the benefits of an international network and how archives and archival research can contribute to a thorough understanding of historical developments in landscape architecture. The collaboration in this project has strengthened the Network of European Landscape Architecture Archives.
Workshops
Link to: Working with archival documents
Working with archival documents
Visits and research sessions in Belgium at CIVA, Brussels and the Van Buuren Museum & Gardens, Uccle. Host: CIVA
Founding IFLA in 1948
Uncovering IFLA’s hidden histories in Reading, United Kingdom. Host: MERL
Landscape planning in urban areas
Workshops and symposium in Ås, Norway about the (changing) profession of landscape architecture in the 1960s and 1970s. Host: NMBU and ANLA
Housing Landscapes of the 1970s and 1980s
Design workshops in Budapest, Hungary and Vienna, Austria. Host: BOKU University and MATE