The LHSA Archives

This is a much-needed project that requires a serious backer, hence, the need for a Foundation to help develop this necessary work. A generation of Landscape Architects has already passed and a new generation is springing up. The world is rapidly changing with them.

So far, university libraries have taken on this challenge, such as the works of the late Ian Ford and Ann Sutton, whose practice archives were curated by the University of Cape Town Landscape Architecture Department. No doubt there are other archives that we are not aware of at the University of Pretoria or elsewhere.

Today, much work is digital and relatively easier to handle, although it still has to be curated and hosted if it is to be accessible; and accessibility is very important. Too much valuable information is locked away from the profession and public, inaccessible unless you have student or academic membership.

There is already a considerable body of work that needs to be collated and cared for as practices close and the Legends and Heroes of South African Landscape Architecture in particular are simply lost. A concerted and coordinated effort with our Schools of Landscape Architecture and Design needs to be undertaken and sponsored. Great garden creators of yesteryear, like the Oppenheimer's Brenthurst and Anglo American's Vergelegen, or today's Babylonstoren will hopefully lead the way and assist in this undertaking.