Cornelia Oberlander
| Cornelia Hahn Oberlander OC, MBCSLA, FCSLA, FASLA, | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 20, 1921 Muelheim-Ruhr, Germany, |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Awards | Order of Canada, American Society of Landscape Architects Medal, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award, Governor General’s Medal in Landscape Architecture, |
| Practice | Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Landscape Architects |
| Buildings | C. K. Choi Building, Vancouver Public Library, Northwest Territories Legislative Building, Canadian Chancery in Washington, DC, National Gallery of Canada, Museum of Anthropology at UBC, Robson Square and Law Courts |
| Projects | Peacekeeping Monument, VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitors Center |
| Design | Canadian Government Pavilion, Children's Creative Centre & play area for Expo 67 in Montreal |
Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, OC, MBCSLA, FCSLA, FASLA, (born 20 June 1921) is a Canadian landscape architect based in Vancouver, British Columbia. During her career she has contributed to the designs of many high-profile buildings in both Canada and the United States, including the Robson Square and Law Courts Complex in Vancouver, the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Chancery in Washington D.C., the Library Square at the Vancouver Public Library, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, and Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly Building in Yellowknife. Her firm, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Landscape Architects, was founded in 1953, when she moved to Vancouver.
Oberlander was born at Muelheim-Ruhr, Germany, on June 20, 1921. In 1938, when she was 18, she and her sister and mother escaped Nazi persecution after the "Kristallnacht" [Night of Broken Glass] pogrom and fled to England, and then emigrated to the United States in 1939. Her mother, Beate Hahn, a horticulturist who wrote gardening books for children, fostered in her a deep love and appreciation for nature from a young age. Since she had a garden bed when she was four years old and planted peas and corn, she knew the joy of growing. In an interview with Mechtild Manus, tracing the roots of Oberlander's interests in landscape architecture, Oberlander stated "At the age of eleven...I studied a mural in the artist's studio showing the river Rhine and an imaginary town. When I asked the artist about the green spaces in this mural, she told me that these were parks. When I came home I told my mother 'I want to make parks.' From there all my education was directed towards becoming a landscape architect." Her mother had a truck farm during the war, in New Hampshire, which Oberlander worked on.
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