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Moment of Silence: Ron Herman & Michael Painter 07-23-18 | Education

Moment of Silence: Ron Herman & Michael Painter
Remembering Two Landscape Architecture Juggernauts

landscapearchitect.com is saddened to learn of the passing of two distinguished landscape architects, Ron Herman (pictured) and Michael Painter. We offer our condolences to their family and loved ones.

Unfortunately, we are saddened to announce the passing of two landscape architectural icons that have contributed immensely to the profession, Ron Herman and Michael Painter, FASLA.

Ron Herman
Ron Herman was an alumnus of University of California Berkeley's College of Environmental Design and earned his bachelor's degree in landscape architecture in 1964.

In October 2017, Herman was a recipient of UC Berkeley's distinguished alumni honor. He had a career in landscape architecture that spanned over 35 years in which he created more than 400 garden designs for some of the most intricate and large-scale residential gardens in North America.

For instance, one of his most famous projects was a 25-acre Japanese style garden for Oracle founder Lawrence Ellison, which landscapearchitect.com covered more than 14 years ago.

Herman was a California native and spent extensive time studying in Japan. He was known for his use of rare materials in his work, and once used 800-year old Chinese cobblestones in a project.

Herman was featured in one of the very first issues of Landscape Architect and Specifier News back in 1988. You can take a look at that HERE.

Painter's most famous project was designing the conceptual framework for San Francisco's Presidio Parkway, which he proposed in 1992 and was completed in 2015. The parkway is a replacement of Doyle Drive, a 1.6-mile segment of Route 101 in San Francisco that is the southern access to the Golden Gate Bridge, connecting Marin and San Francisco counties.

Michael Painter (1935-2018)
Michael Painter was also an alumnus of UC Berkeley, receiving his bachelor's in landscape architecture in 1956 and going on to obtain his master's degree from Harvard in 1965.

Another one of Painter's famous projects was designing John F. Kennedy's gravesite at the Arlington National Cemetery in Texas. landscapearchitect.com published a short informational piece on Painter's architectural firm, MPA Design, back in 2007 if you would like to learn more about that.

Painter was inducted as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1987.