Corner Earns 2024 IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award in Landscape Architecture

James Corner, Practice Professor Emeritus and past chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, has won the 2024 IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award in Landscape Architecture from the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), which represents the worldwide profession of Landscape Architecture.

The award is the preeminent award for landscape architects and the highest honour IFLA can bestow. The jury, composed of the chair, a member from each of the five IFLA regions worldwide and a guest member, agreed that “James Corner is without question one of the most important and influential landscape architects practicing today. With his professional and theoretical work James Corner has made significant and innovative contributions to the field of landscape architecture.”

Corner's broad range of work – from built projects to theoretical works, writings and teaching activities – has had a vast influence on the profession of landscape architecture on a global scale. At Weitzman, he has served on the faculty since 1990, and was chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture from 2000-2013. As a leading protagonist in the discourse on landscape urbanism and design theory and criticism, he has published numerous influential books and essays, likeTaking Measures Across the American Landscape with Alex MacLean (1996), Recovering Landscape (1999), and The Landscape Imagination (2014). In addition, he has presented many talks and lectures around the world. 

James Corner is founding partner of the internationally acclaimed landscape firm Field Operations based in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia, London and Shenzhen. With the focus on the design of important urban public realm projects, Field Operations has realized a range of extraordinary projects mainly in North America and Asia. Among these projects, the High Line in New York City, one of the best known and most iconic, represents Corner´s visionary approach. Other projects include Freshkills Park on Staten Island, New York; the Presidio Tunneltops in San Francisco; Tongva Park in Santa Monica, California; Philadelphia Navy Yard; Seattle’s public waterfront; South Park at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Prk in London; Avenue of the Stars and Victoria Dockside in Hong Kong; and the  new city of Qianhai, in Shenzhen, China. 

His work has been recognized with numerous awards, most notably the ASLA Design Medal; the Richard Neutra Award for Design Excellence; the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in Architecture, and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. He holds Honorary Doctorates in Design from the Technical University of Munich and Manchester Metropolitan University. His work has been exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, the National Building Museum, the Royal Academy of Art in London, and the Venice Biennale.

Past winners of the Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award include Anne Whiston Spirn, currently the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at MIT, who served as chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture from 1986-1994.

Both Corner and Spirn will speak at Weitzman as part of Landscape Futures: The Centennial of the Department of Landscape Architecture, scheduled for September 26 - 27.