Karl Linn

Karl Linn (March 11, 1923 – February 3, 2005) was a landscape architect, psychologist, educator, and community activist, best known for inspiring and guiding the creation of "neighborhood commons" on vacant lots in East Coast inner cities during the 1960s through 1980s. Employing a strategy he called "urban barnraising," he engaged neighborhood residents, volunteer professionals, students, youth teams, social activists, and community gardeners in envisioning, designing, and constructing instant, temporary, and permanent gathering spaces in neighborhoods, on college campuses, and at sites of major conferences and events. "Linn is considered 'Father of American Participatory Architecture' by many academic colleagues and architectural and environmental experts of the National Endowment for the Arts."

In the 1990s his focus shifted to creating commons in community gardens. Many of his pilot projects, designed to cultivate community and peace among people, are documented in his book Building Commons and Community, published by New Village Press in 2007.

Karl grew up on a fruit tree farm in Dessow, a small village 92 kilometres (57 mi) northwest of Berlin. His mother, Henriette (Henny) Rosenthal, had purchased the parcel of 20 morgen (over 12 acres) in 1913 from Eigene Scholle (literally: own soil), a company who, inspired by the land reform movement and the writings of Franz Oppenheimer, had bought and parceled the manor estate of Dessow. Henny designed and supervised the building of a house, planted orchards, and named the property the Immenhof (literally: "bee colony farm"). The bees in the 36 hives she kept were good pollinators. Her cherries, apples, pears, plums, and berries were eagerly awaited in Berlin marketplaces. The farm was also an accredited training center for gardeners and one of the first sites to practice horticultural therapy. The impact of living on a farm and seeing his mother and other women tilling the land stayed with Karl throughout his life.

In 1921 Henny married Josef Lin, a widower with three children, whom she adopted. Josef was Chief Librarian of the Jewish Community Center in Berlin. He had edited Hakeshet (The Rainbow), the first magazine of modern Hebrew writers and poets, published from 1903 to 1906, and wrote a seminal reference book on the evolution of the Hebrew press, first published in 1928 and still used today.

The only Jews in their village, the Lins became a target for Nazi persecution. Josef was forced to flee to Palestine in 1933. Henny, Karl, and his older sister, Bella, followed in 1934 after selling the Immenhof at about an eighth of its value.

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