Hideo Sasaki 1919-2000 Architect Hideo Sasaki, FASLA founder of Sasaki Associates, Inc., died August 30, 2000 in Lafayette, California. Mr. Sasaki founded the firm in 1953 while teaching at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he was chairman of the landscape architecture department from 1958 to 1968. The firm has offices in Watertown and San Francisco. He has been involved in the planning and design of numerous well-known projects, including corporate projects for IBM, Upjohn Co., and Deere & Co.; numerous public spaces including Hartford's Constitution Plaza, New York City's Greenacre Park, and Pennsylvania Avenue; as well as university campuses including the University of Colorado at Boulder and Foothill College in Los Altos, California. Mr. Sasaki was honored by Harvard last year at the department of landscape architecture's 100th anniversary celebration, which featured a symposium on his work entitled "Modernism, Interdisciplinary, and Landscape 1950-1970: The Sasaki Years at Harvard." The university awarded him the Centennial Medal, honoring his extraordinary achievement in landscape architecture. Other honors include honorary degrees from both The Ohio State University and the University of Illinois. In the 1993 commencement at Ohio State, the University praised Mr. Sasaki's contributions as a designer and educator. "As an educator, Mr. Sasaki has transformed the profession of landscape architecture. Today, more than 30 percent of landscape architecture academicians were trained by Mr. Sasaki," reads the Ohio State Doctor of Fine Arts citation. Mr. Sasaki was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and reappointed by President Johnson in 1965. He has served on many distinguished panels, juries, and design review committees including the Vietnam War Memorial Competition in 1981, the Astronaut Memorial Competition in 1988, and the Peace Garden Competition in 1989. He was the first recipient of the American Society of Landscape Architects' medal in 1971, and in 1973 he received the Allied Professions Medal from the American Institute of Architects. Mr. Sasaki, a longtime resident of Lexington, MA, was born on Nov. 25, 1919 in the San Joaquin Valley town of Reedley, Calif. He graduated from the University of Illinois and later earned his master's degree in landscape architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Through the influence that Mr. Sasaki had on the profession of landscape architecture, many new firms were developed under his leadership including the SWA Group based in Sausalito, Calif. Mr. Sasaki is survived by his wife, Kisa, and two daughters, Rin and Ann. The work of Hideo Sasaki was an awakening for me. It illustrated the profound contemplative beauty that can result from the integration of abstracted natural forms into the built environment and provided me an engaging alternative to the traditional western European approach to landscape design that I'd grown up with. Jackson Wandres Principal Landscape Architect The RBA Group I worked in the Watertown office of Sasaki Associates in 1974 while I was a graduate student at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. I was fortunate to have Hideo there and see how he was able to influence design without having to literally pick up a pencil. He was a great motivator and caused you to try harder in search of that proverbial quest to develop a better design solution. It didn't matter what the design issue was. Just hearing Hideo ask you questions was enough to energize you to go further. He was always respectful and gentle, but firm. Owen Lang, ASLA Principal Sasaki Associates, Inc.