Architect Speech

Most Americans dislike city life and insist upon having parks and open spaces in metropolises, a leading landscape architect yesterday told an audience of about 100 at the Graduate School of Design.

Calling the desire for parks a reflection of Americans' increasingly leisure-oriented values, M. Paul Friedberg--founder of the Landscape Architecture program at the City College of New York, the first such program--said that "We are losing productivity and with it the work ethic, and are more actively looking for justification for leisure activities."

By designing award-winning projects like the Harlem River State Park in New York and the downtown greenway park in Madison, Wisconsin--along with parks and garden spaces for the headquarters of several corporations--Friedberg said he has renewed decaying urban areas and made them "reflect the social change of their times"

Although urban design has great direct impact on all people's daily lives, "most people do not want to participate in creating their own environment," he said, adding that this makes proper landscape architecture vital.