Published on School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (https://www.uoguelph.ca/sedrd)

Home > LA Guest Lecture: "Places Have Memory" by Ken Smith

LA Guest Lecture: "Places Have Memory" by Ken Smith

Submitted by dfoolen on August 11th, 2026 2:55 PM
Date: 
Monday, September 28th, 2026 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Location: 

Landscape Architecture Pit (lobby)

University of Guelph - Landscape Architecture Guest Lecture Series presents:

Ken Smith, Founder and Principal of Ken Smith Workshop [1] - New York City.  

Lecture title: "Places Have Memory"

Ken Smith is one of the best-known of a generation of landscape architects equally at home in the worlds of art, architecture, and urbanism.  Trained in both design and the fine arts, he explores the relationship between art, contemporary culture, and landscape.  His practice, Ken Smith Workshop was established in 1992 and is based in New York City.  

The guest lecture sets out to present and discuss design practices and projects that challenge the basic notion of "tabula rasa" with the premise that every site has context and history, embedded with cultural and ecological memory, and that these values need to be fundamentally reflected and expressed in designed landscapes.

This lecture is supported by Maglin Site Furniture [2].

Contacts:  Landscape Architecture Guest Lecture Coordinator: Nadia Amoroso [3], Associate Professor, and LA Guest Lecture Student Assistant: Sydney Black [4].

 

About Us

The School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (SEDRD) brings together major academic fields concerned with creating strong communities, in Canada and around the world. The four highly respected programs in SEDRD share many common goals but approach them in different and complementary ways. This model reflects the imperatives in building authentic communities where planners, landscape architects, communicators, and citizens all play important interdependent roles in community strength.

Contact Us

Academic Programs

  • Capacity Development and Extension
  • Landscape Architecture
  • Rural Planning and Development
  • Rural Studies

Source URL:https://www.uoguelph.ca/sedrd/events/2026/09/la-guest-lecture-places-have-memory-ken-smith

Links
[1] https://www.kensmithworkshop.com/index.html [2] https://www.maglin.com/ [3] mailto:nadia.amoroso@uoguelph.ca [4] mailto:sblack15@uoguelph.ca