FOLAR
Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading

Celebrating Hal Moggridge's Career In Landscape Architecture

A celebration of Hal Moggridge’s Career in Landscape Architecture

FOLAR wanted to understand what impact working with two founding members of the Institute has had on his own approach to landscape architecture, but also in the positions he took on with the LI and IFLA. He has developed a broad and deep knowledge on many aspects of landscape architecture. FOLAR wanted to learn more about some of his key interests and their practical applications that cover both his commissioned and voluntary work. Through a varied programme of speakers and topics we hoped to discover more about his work, ideas, principles, and also about him.

How can such a quiet and modest man achieve so much?

Colvin and Moggridge is now the UK’s oldest landscape practice. The archives of both Hal Moggridge and Brenda Colvin are safely housed at MERL, fully catalogued and open to all: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/collections/brenda-colvin.

One of the most valuable objectives with FOLAR’s celebrations on special lives is being able to discuss, ask questions, see projects and learn and also share so much more about different aspects of peoples’ life and work, rather than guessing or making assumptions.  We hope you will enjoy what you find here.

Hal Moggridge, OBE, is an architect, landscape architect, author, past president of the Landscape Institute (LI), twice winner of the LI gold medal, recipient of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Victoria Medal of Honour. And, in September 2025, he was honoured with the IFLA (International Federation of Landscape Architects) President’s Award, given in recognition of his contribution for the advancement of the profession of landscape architecture through participation with IFLA.  

Continuing FOLAR’s special series celebrating the life and works of UK’s renowned landscape architects, Hal was an obvious choice. He has spent almost all of his working life in landscape architecture. Hal has spent his working life in landscape architecture. Throughout this time, he has shared his knowledge and wisdom guiding multiple landscape focused organisations and professional bodies at international, national, and local levels. Hal has long provided a compass of wisdom, generosity, and diplomacy. He sees landscapes not only as cultural treasures, but also tools for reconciliation and he embraces diversity as a strength. His courage, clarity, and humanistic vision continue to inspire. He continues working now as a consultant to his practice and advising on multiple committees, including FOLAR.  

We wanted to understand what impact working with two founding members of the Institute has had on his own approach to landscape architecture, but also in the positions he took on with the LI and IFLA.

7. Inspiring kindness to younger professionals

About this video

To FOLAR’s knowledge, there are very few people who have researched the Landscape Institute’s archives at Reading as thoroughly and productively as has Luca Csepely-Knorr, or who have inspired so many others to become researchers and collaborate in her broad areas of interest. She has also directed and sustained a Europe wide scholarly focus on the archive. As a landscape architect, art historian and now professor and research chair at Liverpool University, she is ambitious not for herself but to celebrate and learn from the exceptional work and lives of past landscape architects. Success in accessing funding pots has helped. Her main topics include the post war cultural, amenity and ecological values of the nationalised production of electricity; the contribution made by landscape architects to create a more equitable society; and uncovering hidden histories within a collection of European archives and museums. In all these areas, women landscape architects have had a significant but often underrepresented role, and Brenda Colvin, having established her practice in 1922, was one of the leading thinkers and practitioners of this time.

Luca has not only researched Brenda’s archive at The MERL, but also consulted and collaborated with Hal. She invited him to engage with her students including an oral history project with them so they could learn this technique in their study of four power stations, and show them some of Brenda’s various drawings including the enormous plans for Gale Common. Situated 7km from Eggborough and Ferrybridge power stations in Yorkshire, this is a responsibly designed waste disposal site, largely composed of pulverised fuel ash, which was the waste product from burning pulverised coal.

‘Inspiring kindness to younger professionals’ is a quote by Hal about Brenda that she found in their archives, and it is her guiding topic for this presentation as it equally reflects Hal’s approach. Her students learnt much from Hal that would not be found in books or archives, not only about the site, issues, solutions and the benefits the new landscapes brought, but it also became clear to Luca how much they and he enjoyed this discussion and interaction. The exchange in the form of lectures and discussions continued on zoom during COVID and contributed to an exhibition after COVID at the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield. Hal was Luca’s trusted mentor for her Women of the Welfare Landscape project, and she followed his advice to organise a travelling exhibition of material they had selected together, to showcase across England and Scotland, in libraries, galleries, National Trust properties, and universities where the next generation of landscape architects were being taught. Some venues were the locations of projects such as the Scottish New Town of East Kilbride, and so the exhibition was back with the local community it was originally designed for.

Hal also collaborated with a 3 screen film that was created about the life, death and afterlife of power station landscapes, and their communities. It is beautifully made and filmed and includes several shocking sequences of the violent destruction of the cooling towers, watched on by some of the local community in their front gardens. In slow motion the whole sky changes colour and obscures the sun. But it was not this that so impressed Luca, it was a short statement spoken by Hal on the importance of an older generation sharing optimism about the future with younger generations, and the need to believe and know that you can do things well. 

About this series

Hal Moggridge was an obvious choice to continue FOLAR’s special series celebrating the life and works of UK’s renowned landscape architects. He has spent almost all of his working life in landscape architecture. Throughout this time, he has shared his knowledge and wisdom guiding multiple landscape focused organisations and professional bodies at international, national, and local levels. Hal has long provided a compass of wisdom, generosity, and diplomacy. He sees landscapes not only as cultural treasures, but also tools for reconciliation and embraces diversity as a strength. His courage, clarity, and humanistic vision continue to inspire. He continues working now as a consultant to his practice and as a volunteer advising on multiple committees, including FOLAR. Through a varied programme of speakers and topics we hoped to discover more about his work, ideas, principles, and also about him. How can such a quiet and modest man achieve so much? One of the most valuable objectives with FOLAR’s celebrations on special lives is being able to discuss, ask questions, see projects and learn and also share so much more about different aspects of peoples’ life and work, rather than guessing or making assumptions.

The archives of both Hal Moggridge and Brenda Colvin are at MERL, fully catalogued and open to all by appointment: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/collections/brenda-colvin

The Landscape Institute collection at MERL: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/collections/landscape-institute/

More information about FOLAR, and joining us https://www.folar.uk/

Annabel DownsComment