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Interesting side note...UVA Grounds are home to some of Walter Hood's work!

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Walter Hood: How urban spaces can preserve history and build community

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Can public spaces both reclaim the past and embrace the future? Landscape architect Walter Hood has explored this question over the course of an iconic career, with projects ranging from Lafayette Square Park in San Francisco to the upcoming International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina.

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In his textbook, Gary Davis concludes that "the creative process...is the process of combining ideas or perceiving the relationships" (Davis, 44). Walter Hood has effectively done both by combining architecture with art. This is a unique skill, which reminds me of Stephen Jay Gould and his self-proclaimed talent for "connections" (Shekerjian, 5). In both instances, these combinations "require experience, highly-developed and stylistic skills, high energy, a lively imagination, and a polished aesthetic taste" (Davis, 45). Part of how Hood comes to create such aesthetically pleasing products is by studying the localities and the peoples surrounding his designs. In turn, much of Hood's creativity comes as a "response to social needs" as explained by Rhodes (Davis, 47). Walter Hood's work is very much a product of any given environment.

Nauck Town Square in Arlington is both a figurative and literal crossroads of past and present. In an area in which increasing property values has brought major changes to the demographics, the Nauck project seeks to honor the community's rich history. This place was formerly called "Freedman's Village" because of the numerous free blacks who lived there prior to emancipation. The FREED sculpture below is built from the "slave badges" of former inhabitants so that their history is never forgotten.

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As the principal of Central Park East Elementary School, Debbie Meier claimed that "risk is everything" (Shekerjian, 21). She explained risk to be a matter of everyday life, especially when trying to do something that hasn't already been done. It seems that risk is something that Walter Hood has grown into as he has become more confident in his own abilities. Early in life, he might have been considered risk averse, choosing to study architecture rather than art. Art itself was too risky to him because he was the first in his family to go to college. Despite choosing a more stable career-path, Hood still pushed the boundaries of the status quo through his various pieces of work. His works demonstrate more and more risk over time. Lafayette Square Park has a more functional design as compared to the International African American Museum which serves entirely to share culture and history. The IAAM in Charleston, SC features a tidal pool exhibit with life-sized human figures and shells from the Atlantic Ocean representing the many enslaved people who were brought to South Carolina through the middle passage. Hood mentions that a lot of his work seeks to bring suppressed histories and peoples to the surface and this can be a risky endeavor in itself. It can sometimes be difficult to accept one's history, especially when it is as dark as America's. One such project at the Oakland Museum of California will undo designs that currently reflect the civil unrest of the 1960s . This is certainly a risk to take and the link below explains how he plans to do this.

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In an effort to expand its role as a public gathering place, the Oakland Museum of California, located on the perimeter of Lake Merritt, will undergo major architectural and landscape improvements starting this year.

Most notably, Walter Hood, who, along with 25 other recipients, just won this year's coveted MacArthur "genius" grant, will spearhead the look and feel for the new grounds.

OMCA's iconic terraced gardens, positioned at each of the museum's three stories, will see the most change. The gardens will soon feature a myriad of plants native to California, with each terrace representing an ecoregion of California containing greenery and flora found throughout the state.

A fresh batch of sculptures will be placed throughout the public gardens, including works by California artists like as Ruth Asawa, Bruce Beasley, Beniamino Bufano, Mark di Suvero, Viola Frey, George Rickey, and Peter Voulkos.

Three 20-foot openings will replace the imposing exterior wall along the museum's northern side facing Lake Merritt, creating a new entrance and opening up the campus on a well-trafficked pedestrian corner.

In creating the new design, Hood researched the work of Dan Kiley, the original landscape architect of the museum's gardens. Kiley's plans didn't include its current northern garden wall-a barrier placed during an era of civil unrest when the museum opened in 1969.

"In the late '60s, Oakland was in turmoil," Hood told Art Net News in August, noting that Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton was jailed not far from the museum's home, resulting in public protests. "We think the idea of walling the museum in may have been a product of the times."

New configurations along the museum's 10th Street side will allow direct entry into OMCA's cafe and public event space, creating better pedestrian access.

Other new highlights will include built-in lighting and audio/visual elements in the outdoor stage area, as well as enhancements to the terraces and patios, central courtyard, and seating areas.

On Thursday, the museum announced that it already raised approximately $71 million toward the $85 million fundraising goal for its renovation. Construction on the new OMCA is tentatively scheduled for completion in the fall of 2020.

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Walter Hood, MacArthur 'genius' grant winner, will transform Oakland Museum of California

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In an effort to expand its role as a public gathering place, the Oakland Museum of California, located on the perimeter of Lake Merritt, will undergo major architectural and landscape improvements starting this year. Most notably, Walter Hood, who, along with 25 other recipients, just won this year's coveted MacArthur "genius" grant, will spearhead the look and feel for the new grounds.

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Roger Steinberg made the assertion that "creativity is a decision" and this was something that stuck with me. Everything about Walter Hood's story and work point to the fact that at one point, he made the decision to be creative. In becoming an architect, Hood did not just settle in designing for functionality. Instead, he found a niche for landscapes that serve as social art. Steinberg pointed towards the constantly changing world as motivation for creativity, and Walter Hood has done exactly that by turning the most "mundane spaces" into something beautiful. An example of this is this walkway at the Broad Museum which combines ancient landscaping with modern architecture. He could have simply designed the walkway to include some greenery, but this beautiful olive grove creates a space in which people must stop in awe.

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Walter is a landscape and public artist who creates urban spaces with a specialty for honoring communal histories.

Major designs include Lafayette Square Park (Oakland), Splash Pad Park (Oakland), gardens of M.H. de Young Museum (Golden State Park), and walkways of Broad Museum in LA