The Masters of Modern Landscape Design is a series of biographies featuring landscape architects prominent in the mid to late 20th century in North America. Ruth Shellhorn (1909-2006) was a west coast landscape architect, who lived productively into her 90s. This biography is written by Kelly Comras, a landscape architect based in Los Angeles. Much of Shellhorn’s work was also in greater Los Angeles, but she attended what is now Oregon State University for her undergraduate degree.
Comras observes that if Shellhorn had made a greater effort of self-promotion, she would be more famous today. She quotes David Streatfield, a landscape architecture historian at the University of Washington, who “noted the ‘terrible imbalance in terms of the public’s perception between Ruth Shellhorn…and many of her contemporaries, such as Garrett Eckbo, Lawrence Halprin, and Thomas Church, who wrote books about their own work, hired professional photographers, and published extensively.'”
One of the most fascinating chapters is about Shellhorn’s work on Disneyland. She was hired just four months before the opening in 1955, after Walt Disney belatedly recognized the need to “unify the distinctive elements” of the variously themed areas. She proved very skillful in not only unifying buildings that were already in place but also in creating a visitor experience that increases the sense of discovery while mitigating the challenges of large crowds. Comras describes the landscape design by Shellhorn to be largely intact today despite on-going changes to the park.
Excerpted from the Summer 2018 Arboretum Bulletin.