Landscape Architecture, Reinvented

"Corner has spent the last 25 years becoming that guy in a deliberate attempt to reinvent the field of landscape architecture by pushing aside its second-fiddle status and antiurban tendencies and claiming a more ambitious agenda: to design the postindustrial city. Rather than wielding bushes and trees—the proverbial parsley around the roast of proper ­architecture—landscape architects are, as Corner sees it, the best prepared to tackle the complex, large-scale, often environmentally damaged sites that have become the hallmark of urban regeneration. He approaches them with the intellectual assurance of a philosopher and the political bravado of a pow­er broker. "I don't want to be embarrassed to be a landscape architect because we're thought of as tree people who come in at the end of the day," he says.

The first built example of that ambition is just now being realized with the opening next month of sections of the High Line, the elevated-freight-railway-turned-park on the West Side of Manhattan. The project has been charmed from the beginning, blessed with astute neighborhood activists, strong political will, and plenty of private money. And yet Corner has constantly had to battle the misconception that the architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro—his subcontractors—did the heavy lifting while his team merely chose the shrubbery. "In every project we’ve initiated, we've led, we've had architects and engineers and other experts be part of our team," Corner says. "Professionally speaking, that's a big advance for a field that’s normally reticent.'"