FOLAR
Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading

Past Talks

Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading

Past Talks

Almost from the outset FOLAR has - with generous permission from our speakers - recorded virtually all the talks we have held at symposia and online.There are currently over 130 recordings available under Past Talks and Specials. The Past Talks section covers topics ranging from the Festival Pleasure Gardens at Battersea Park, Susan Jellicoe’s photographs, The Open Spaces Society, working on Byker in Newcastle with Ralph Erskine to landscape designs that promote human health and well-being.

There are a number of talks that focus on women landscape designers, from Fanny Wilkinson, Marjory Lady Allen of Hurtwood, Brenda Colvin, and Sylvia Crowe in Bristol, to Elisabeth Beazley, Diana Armstrong Bell and other contemporary landscape architects in the can…

Our speakers include past presidents of the Landscape Institute - Brian Clouston, Hal Moggridge, Tim Gale; landscape academics - Ed Bennis, Jan Woudstra, Alan Powers, Luca Csepely-Knorr, Catharine Ward Thompson; historians - Elain Harwood, John Boughton, Katrina Navikas; practitioners – Annie Coombs; Neil Chapman, Jennette Emery-Wallis, Paul Rabbitts, Ian Baggott,  young researchers – Joy Burgess, Sally Watson, Karen Fitzsimon and many more.

The Specials section includestalks celebrating the life and works of two of the Institute’s significant practitioners – Bran Clouston and Hal Moggridge;  and a series of twenty one talks on the C20 designed landscapes that were added to the Historic England register in 2021.

So how can anybody find anything in all these recordings?  The quickest way is to use the search box – type in a strong and simple key word linked with what you are searching for, eg play, Jellicoe, Sweden, and hopefully you will find something that is useful for you.

 

FOLAR Inaugural Meeting

Launch of FOLAR Friends of Landscape Institute archive and library at
The MERL, University of Reading, on Saturday 15th February 2014

Notes from this seminal meeting, led by Penny Beckett FLI and Helen Tranter FLI who were appointed in this meeting as Chair and Vice Chair along with a small committee to establish the Friends Group. Progress of the transfer of the Landscape Institute archive and library to the University of Reading, the role of the LI and our new friends group in helping secure a safe and active future. were addressed along with questions raised and answered. Topics on the agenda included the following:

  • Introduction and progress report Guy Baxter (GB), University Archivist at MERL

  • Legal transfer of library and archive between LI and MERL

  • Friends Group role

  • Questions from Friends

  • Is there a role for existing related landscape charities?

  • Discussion items for Friends Group

  • First committee appointed for one year to establish Friends Group

  • Recent work on archives in N Ireland

  • Future Friends Group events/activities

These notes and subsequent FOLAR Annual General Meeting Minute’s are available here

Annabel Downs