Dan Kiley

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Dan Kiley
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Dan Kiley

Daniel Urban Kiley (2 September 1912 - 21 February 2004) was a noted American landscape architect in the modernist style.

[edit] Life and Career

Dan Kiley was born in 1912 in Boston Massachusetts. In 1932 at the age of 20, he began a four-year apprenticeship with landscape architect, Warren Manning. It was here that he learned the fundamentals of office practice. He also developed an interest in the role of plants in design, sparking his latter creative and innovative use of plants in the landscape. In 1936, Kiley entered into the design program at Harvard, while continuing work with Manning. Among his classmates and friends were Garrett Eckbo and James Rose, who also became well- known, influential landscape architects. After two years at Harvard, Kiley left without graduating. Consequently he became a self-taught man. He went to work briefly for the National Park Service in Concord, New Hampshire, and later the United States Housing Authority, where he first met architect, Louis Kahn. Kiley left the Housing Authority in 1940, to become a licensed practitioner of architecture based on Kahn’s recommendations. From 1943 to 1945, Kiley served in the U.S. Army. Based on his background in design he was appropriately transferred to the Corp of Engineers in the office of Strategic Services, where he became head of the design staff. At the end of World War II, Kiley designed the courtroom where the Nuremberg Trials were held. The landscape of Europe had a profound affect on Kiley, where he visited the work of André Le Nôtre at Sceaux Chantilly, Versailles, and Vaux-le-Vicomte. The formality and geometric layout of these gardens paved the way for his future Classical Modernist style.

Following the war, Kiley found himself being one of the only modern landscape architects in the post war building boom. In California, his friend Garrett Eckbo, Thomas Church and others were developing and practicing the modernist[1] style. Kiley returned to his practice in New Hampshire, and later moved it to Vermont. In collaboration with the modern architect, Eero Saarinen, Kiley entered into a design competition for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (known as the St. Louis Arch Park). This project would serve as a launching point for his career as a landscape architect. Kiley’s first essentially modern landscape design was the Miller Garden in 1955. Among many of his other well known masterpiece works include the Fountain Palace in Dallas, Texas, the Nations Bank Plaza in Tampa, Florida, the United State Air Force Academy, the Oakland Museum, Independence Mall in Philadelphia, and the Dallas Museum of Art. During the course of his career he completed more than 900 projects, which received countless awards. In his office he apprenticed and inspired many great designers such as Richard Haag, Peter Hornbeck, Peter Walker, and Ian Tyndal.

The unique geometric layout of allees, bosques, water, paths, orchards, and lawns characterize Dan Kiley’s design. To Kiley, regular geometry lied at the heart of his design. Like his predecessors, Le Corbusier and Le Notre, Kiley believed that geometry was an inherent part of man. It was the structure man could used to gain comprehension and create stabilization of his surroundings. He also firmly believed that man was a part of nature, rather than being separate from it. Rather than copying and trying to imitate the curvilinear forms of nature he asserted mathematical order to the landscape. Kiley’s landscapes overstepped their boundaries rather than ending elements neatly on a suggested edge. He called this approach, slippage, or an extension beyond the implied boundary, creating ambiguous relationships in the landscape. Dan Kiley was a landscape architect made famous by his hundreds of distinguished works of landscape design, and inspires many students and professionals in the field of landscape architecture.

[edit] Influential Projects

[edit] References

  • “A Designer’s Designer, Dan Kiley Cast a Long Shadow, Appreciations by his Associates and Friends.” Landscape Architecture. May (2004) Vol. 94 Num. 5. pgs. 116-125
  • Obituary, New York Times, February 25, 2004.
  • Oppenheimer, Andrea. “Modern Master.” Landscape Architecture. February (1996) Vol. 86 Num. 2. pgs. 74-79
  • Treib, Marc. “Dan Kiley and Classical Modernism: Mies in Leaf.” Landscape Journal. (2005) Vol. 24. Num. 1. pgs 1-12
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