A Moment of Silence, Daniel Urban Kiley (1912 to 2004)

Daniel Urban Kiley. Jane Brown, author of The Modern Garden, describes Kiley as the ?EUR??,,????'??supreme master of the modern garden.?EUR??,,????'??

Daniel Urban Kiley, a landscape architect known for his gardens and work with modernistic architects, passed on at the age of 91, February 21, 2004.

Kiley, born in Roxbury Highlands in Boston, Massachusetts in 1912 began his formal training in landscape design as an apprentice from 1932 to 1936 in the office of Warren Manning in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He did drafting, some design, supervised selection and transplanting of plant materials from nurseries, and developed his love for creative plant selection.

Kiley matriculated into the landscape architectural program at Harvard University in 1936, where he began to be influenced by what was happening in architecture and looking to incorporate those modern influences into landscape design. Kiley and fellow students Rose and Eckbo published a series of articles between 1939 and 1940 describing their modernistic views in the Architectural Record.

Kiley abandoned his studies at Harvard in 1938 and went to work for a time with the National Park Service in New Hampshire and Washington, D.C., and for the United States Public Housing Authority, where he met architect Louis Kahn.

In 1942 he married Anne Sturges and opened his own office in Franconia, New Hampshire, a local ideal for the couple?EUR??,,????'???s love of skiing.

Kiley served in the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in the Office of Strategic Services from 1943 to 1945, and was promoted to direct the design staff. After Germany?EUR??,,????'???s fall, Kiley had the curious assignment of laying out the courtroom for the Nuremberg trials. While in Europe, he took the opportunity to visit the large formal gardens in German and France, which left a lasting impression on him.

On his return to the states, Kiley kept company with a number of American modern architects, including Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei and Louis Kahn, continuing to aspire to incorporate their modern ideas into his practice in New Hampshire and later in Vermont.

He collaborated with Saarinen on the St. Louis Arch project, the J. Irwin Miller Garden in Columbus, Indiana, and the gardens for Dulles Airport. Other notable projects included: the gardens at the Airforce Academy in Colorado Springs with Walter Netch of SOM; the roof-top gardens at the Oakland Museum in Calif., with Saarinen's surviving partner, Kevin Roche; a series of urban plans for Columbus, Indiana, and other projects in the area; the Dallas Museum of Art Sculpture Garden; the Fountain Place in Dallas, Texas; Nations Bank Plaza in Tampa, Florida with Harry Wolf; the Henry Moore Sculpture Garden at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri; the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston; and the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.