While architects are celebrated for their achievements with high-profile awards like the Pritzker Prize, the landscape architects who play a crucial role in many projects are too often overlooked. Thankfully, that?s about to change with a new international landscape architecture prize announced by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF).

The biennial prize will bestow $100,000 USD (the same amount offered for the Pritzker) and two years of related public engagement activities on ?a living practitioner, collaborative, or team for their creative, courageous, and visionary work in the field of landscape architecture.?

Underwritten by a lead gift of $1 million USD from TCLF board co-chair Joan Sharon and her husband Rob Haimes, which was matched by the rest of the board and other donors, the fund has been endowed with $4.5M to keep it running ?in perpetuity.? The first award will be given in 2021, and any landscape architects, artists, urban designers, and planners with a serious portfolio of landscape-architectural projects are eligible.
?Landscape architecture is one of the most complex and, arguably, the least understood art forms,? says Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF founder, President, and CEO. ?It challenges practitioners to be design innovators often while spanning the arts and sciences in addressing many of the most pressing social, environmental, and cultural issues in contemporary society.?

He?s not kidding, either. While architects rightfully get a lo...