Photo by Kenneth Hayden
We were sad to receive word of the death Sunday of Grady Clay, Honorary ASLA, LAM’s longtime, influential, and much-loved editor, at the age of 96 in Louisville. More remembrance and details on observances will follow as we receive them. For now, we are posting a terrific interview that Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, did with Grady for the magazine’s 100th anniversary issue.
From the October 2010 issue of LAM:
By Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA
GRADY CLAY, HONORARY ASLA, who worked as an associate editor and, ultimately, the executive editor of Landscape Architecture for 23 years, has a rich, extraordinary perspective on the profession and its practitioners. As an outsider with tremendous insight, Clay, now 94, helped shape decades of debate and discourse. He chronicled the origins of modernism, the first corporate office parks, The RSVP Cycles, Design with Nature, postmodernism, and both the New American Garden and the Bagel Garden. He plucked out new talent like a gifted curator and gave it a voice. Clay’s arrival came at a major hinge point in the profession, as it coincided with the centennial of Central Park and the onset of urban renewal. His incisive editorial vision marked a passing of the profession’s old guard and the rise of a new generation’s eclectic vision.
