Tributes to Richard Weller

Tuia Pito Ora New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects has joined with the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) in mourning the loss of Richard Weller in May. Kua hinga te tōtara i Te Waonui-a-Tāne.

Richard participated in NZILA’s celebratory 50th anniversary conference event in 2022 on the subject of landscape architects and climate change. His presentation, delivered virtually and captured on video, was titled the Problem of the 2 Worlds. 

In 2018 he gave LAA permission to republish Crisis, Knowledge and Action - a piece written for the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), arguing for an expanded role for landscape architects in consideration of urban growth.

As collated at the Weitzman School of Design, the biography for Richard J. Weller is a testament to a life lived to the full. He  was Professor Emeritus and Co-Founder, with Fritz Steiner, of The Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology. He was the Chair of the Department Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, serving from 2013 through 2022. He was the co-director of Room 4.1.3 – a design firm acknowledged with a Penn Press monograph (2005).

Over 30 years of practice, he worked simultaneously as an academic and a consultant specializing in the formative stages of projects ranging across all scales. Weller’s work was frequently awarded in international design competitions and exhibited in galleries such as the Guggenheim in New York, the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the MAXXI Gallery in Rome, the Canadian Design Museum in Toronto and the Chinese Academy of Fine Art in Beijing.

He published 7 books and well over 100 single-authored academic papers, book chapters and articles on the theory and practice of landscape architecture and urban design. He was also the founding Creative Director of the interdisciplinary journal of landscape architecture LA+.

Weller’s final research concerned global flashpoints between biodiversity and urban growth. This research is documented in the web-based platforms ‘The World Park Project’, ‘The Hotspot Cities Project’ and the ‘Atlas for the End of the World’. This work has been widely published, exhibited and reviewed.

Weller was an emeritus board member of the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) in Washington DC and was inducted into the Academy of Fellows of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) in 2020.

Weller taught advanced design studios and subjects in the history and theory of landscape architecture and urbanism. In 2012 he received a national Australian teaching award and in both 2017 and 2018 was voted by the Design Intelligence Survey as one of North America’s “most admired” teachers.

Tributes

Landscape Australia - We knew this day was coming
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Richard’s expansive intellect, creativity and work ethic would have guaranteed success in any number of creative fields. But fortunately for our discipline, he chose to study landscape architecture at UNSW, graduating in 1986. Throughout his distinguished career, Richard consistently challenged landscape architecture to deepen its engagement as a design discipline. This is why he loved the competition medium so much (and had so much success in it). Through the limitations of the conceptual design competition, he developed his signature practice – a theoretical manifesto-like proposition communicated through creative graphic representation.

The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects
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Weller’s design philosophy was rooted in the belief that landscape architecture is an “art of instrumentality,” addressing complex social, ecological, and urban challenges through creative and rigorous solutions. His work ranged from small-scale artistic interventions to visionary planning at the scale of megaregions, always grounded in a deep sense of place and a commitment to public good.

Richard Weller’s legacy is one of fearless creativity, intellectual generosity, and unwavering dedication to the advancement of landscape architecture. He leaves behind a body of work, a generation of inspired practitioners, and a profession forever enriched by his presence.

Dr Sara Padgett Kjaersgaard | Director Landscape Architecture UNSW Sydney. PhD, Registered Landscape Architect (AILA), Fellow AILA, Senior Lecturer - Landscape Architecture.
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(A colleague) reflected that Richard was one of our program’s most influential alumni—perhaps the most influential—and that “phenomenon” is an apt characterisation. Richard was simply, the rock-star of the landscape architecture world. Jillian Walliss' foreword in his 2024 publication An Art of Instrumentality (a must read if you have not) describes him as having a Bob Geldof presence – for his ‘shared ambition to mobilize at scale for greater social and ecological outcomes’. His ability to grapple with projects of significant scale and political will was nothing less than extraordinary.

Richard was an articulate, charismatic artist, a prolific communicator of image and word. Most recently I told him that the world needs his creativity in it – how blessed we are to have a legacy of significant magnitude that will continue to inspire us.

UWA Publishing
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Kate Pickard, publisher of UWA Publishing, remembers Richard for “his passion for landscape architecture and his wildly creative thinking (not to mention leather pants and flowing hair). His passion is what drove the team at UWA Publishing to collaborate and create the stunning the Boomtown 2050 and Made in Australia.”

The Weitzman School of Design – University of Pennsylvania
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The Weitzman School has made an open invitation for tributes. The collection of 20+ tributes includes heartfelt words from: James Corner | Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture; Founding Partner & CEO, Field Operations; Laurie Olin | Practice Professor Emeritus in Landscape Architecture; Founding Partner, OLIN; Lucinda Sanders | Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture; CEO, OLIN; and Barbara Deutsch | CEO, Landscape Architecture Foundation. The School is planning an in-person celebration of Richard Weller's life and work for the fall of 2025.

A Richard Weller sampler

Websites

Book reviews

Interviews

  • American Society of Landscape Architects – read here.

Videos

Various

AILA, #Around-the-worldStephen Olsen