The Center for Cultural Landscapes congratulates landscape architects, Liz Sargent and Jen Trompetter, both graduates of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, for winning first prize in the 2017 Historic American Landscape Survey Challenge (HALS) for their entry for Emancipation Park (formerly Lee Park) in Charlottesville, Virginia.  The National Park Service and the Historic American Landscape Survey sponsor the competition, which focuses on a specific theme each year. The 2017 theme was “Documenting City and Town Parks.”  Sargent and Trompetter’s work on Emancipation Park documented the park at a time it gained national attention as the object of heated debate, and the site of multiple demonstrations, acts of intimidation, and violence. The HALS documentation will help communicate the site’s history to a broader audience, and to situate the park and its statue in in temporal, political and design context.

Christopher M. Stevens, a fellow UVA alumni and a landscape architect working at HALS, stated that the judges that reviewed and scored all of the 2017 HALS Challenge: Documenting City or Town Parks entries independently concluded that the Lee Park HALS VA-78 submission clearly was the finest entry, stating, “The HALS short format historical report was well organized and had a succinct and appropriate Statement of Significance which was thoroughly supported by the History and Description sections.  Additionally, the report clearly placed the park in context with its period of construction and its relevance in the twenty-first century.  The choice of photographs perfectly supplemented the physical Description, that also included accurate and informed botanical designations.  The report exemplified everything that should be included in a Short Format HALS history.”

Liz Sargent is Principal of Liz Sargent HLA, and an affiliate member of the Center for Cultural Landscapes. Jen Trompetter is also Principal of Liz Sargent HLA.

The HALS challenge for 2018 will focus on the theme “Memorialization, Commemorating the Great War.”  Information about the HALS Challenge can be found at: https://www.nps.gov/HDP/competitions/HALS_Challenge.html