I usually don’t enjoy the Landscape Institute Awards that much. Others can relax and enjoy themselves while feasting on the tremendous visual spectacle of the year’s finest landscape schemes, but I am standing on stage with my back to the screen trying to remember how to pronounce Moel-y-Faen properly and making sure I read my script at a sufficient clip so we don’t overrun.
This year, as usual, I did not see the images of the winning entries, but I did have the pleasure of spending time with poet, wit and all round renaissance man Ian McMillan, who hosted the event for us. His speech was deeply moving when he spoke of the changes to his native Yorkshire landscape over his lifetime, and absolutely hilarious when he recounted his daughter’s purchase of a new eco-home.
I was intending to try and capture some of the wonderful magic Ian brought to our Awards, but I see that he has obligingly done it for me by writing all about our Awards in his column for the Yorkshire Post, so I will invite you to read his words, not mine.
Images of the winning entries will be posted on our website shortly, and I hope you will take a look. This year we have also published ‘A Year in Landscape’, a brochure which showcases the shortlisted Awards entries – and contains an essay from Ian McMillan on what landscape means to him as a poet. As well as being available in hard copy this is published as a PDF on our website here. If your practice has not entered for an LI award before, do please consider doing so in a few months’ time when the 2011 round opens.
From time to time the LI awards Honorary Fellowship to individuals outside the profession who have made a major contribution to the Institute, to the profession or to Landscape Architecture. This year, to round off the Awards ceremony, Honorary Fellowship was awarded to Sarah Gaventa, Director of CABE Space. As many members will be aware, CABE and its satellite CABE Space have lost their government funding and are due to close down by the end of March. It is possible that some kind of solution can be found which will enable many of CABE’s invaluable functions to be continued, and the LI is in discussions to this end with CABE and with the Department for Communities and Local Government In the meantime however the LI Board felt it was appropriate to make Sarah an Honorary Fellow in recognition of the tremendous support she has given to the profession in recent years.
Shoot, so that’s that one spupsoes.