Hideo Sasaki

Hideo Sasaki (, 25 November 1919 – 30 August 2000) was a Japanese American landscape architect.

Biography Hideo Sasaki was born in Reedley, California, on 25 November 1919. He grew up working on his family's California truck farm, and harvesting crops on Arizona farms. He began his college studies at the University of California, Berkeley during the time of World War II. Owing to his Japanese descent, he was forced into the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona after the signing of Executive Order 9066. He was able to leave the camp upon volunteering to work as a farm hand in Sterling, Colorado.

Soon after the war, he moved to Denver, Colorado where he met his wife, Kisa, a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder. Sasaki then moved to the University of Illinois Department of Landscape Architecture where he received Bachelor of Fine Arts and Landscape Architecture in 1946. During his time at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Sasaki worked with Charles Harris. After graduation he returned to Illinois where he instructed for two years. For the next eighteen years (1953-1970) he became a professor and the chairman of the department of Landscape Architecture of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 1953, he founded Sasaki Associates, incorporated in nearby Watertown, Massachusetts, where he was the president and chairman until 1980. He led the company's architects and planners in developing many noted commercial areas and corporate parks.

Architectural experience Hideo Sasaki had partnered with Peter Walker to create Sasaki Walker and Associates. After creating the firm, Sasaki was able to expand his company into having offices in San Francisco, Nashville, Baltimore, Denver, and Washington, D.C. in the United States, as well as Canada. The firm's work includes Golden Gateway Center, San Francisco (1959–1960—with Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill); Foothill College, Los Altos, California (1960–1962); Weyerhaeuser Headquarters, Tacoma, Washington (1963–1972); the roof-gardens, etc., Bona-ventura Hotel, Montréal, Quebec (1964–1968—designed by Masao Kinoshita); Greenacre Park, New York City (1970–1972); Constitution Plaza, Hartford, Connecticut (1969–1973); and the John Deere & Co. headquarters, Moline, Illinois (1957–1963—with buildings by Saarinen).

The Cultural Landscape Foundation described the firm as, "The firm evolved through various configurations, but consistent was Sasaki's conviction in the notion of oasis and that landscapes can restore the human spirit." He is credited with introducing the modernist design principles of minimalism and abstraction to landscape architecture. He was instrumental in developing the “Sasaki Style” which emphasized the integration of natural and man-made elements, the use of simple materials, and the integration of landscape, architecture, and urbanism. He was the first landscape architect to receive the American Society of Landscape Architects' Medal of Excellence, in 1972. Some of Sasaki's most notable works include the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, the San Francisco State College campus, the First National Bank Plaza in Minneapolis, and the National Mall in Washington, DC. Washington Square Village, Greenwich Village, New York City, 1958 master plan for Sea Pines Resort, Hilton Head, South Carolina, circa 1961 Bell Labs Holmdel Complex, Holmdel Township, New Jersey, 1962 consultant for York University, Toronto, 1962 master plan for University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1962 John Deere World Headquarters, Moline, Illinois, 1964 One Maritime Plaza, San Francisco, California, 1964 master plan for the Loomis Chaffee School, Windsor, Connecticut, 1967 One Shell Plaza, Houston, Texas, 1971 urban design for Pearl Street Mall, Boulder, Colorado, 1977 Forrestal Village, Princeton, New Jersey, 1986 Waterfront Park, Charleston, South Carolina, 1990 Euro Disneyland in Paris, France, 1992 master plan for The Arboretum at Penn State, State College, Pennsylvania, 1999 Performance Hall, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, 2006 master plan for the Puerto Rico Convention Center District, 2006 redesign and reconstruction of the Ithaca Commons, 2015

Awards and achievements In 1961 President John F. Kennedy appointed Sasaki to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. He held this position until 1971, being re-appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. In 1971 he received the American Society of Landscape Architects Medal, the first person to do so. In 1973 he received the Allied Professions Medal from the American Institute of Architects. Sasaki was member of University of Colorado Boulder's four-member design review board for 33 years. He was chairman of the department of landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1950-1968). He founded Sasaki Associates Inc. and was chairman and president of the board (1953-1980). He was a Juror for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Competition in 1981, the Astronaut Memorial Competition in 1988 and the Peace Garden Competition in 1989. Sasaki was awarded the Centennial Medal for his impact on landscape architecture at the Harvard Design School, at a 1999 symposium on his work. In 1984 Sasaki was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado Boulder.