Cornelia Oberlander

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander CC OBC (20 June 1921 – 22 May 2021) was a German-born Canadian landscape architect. Her firm, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander Landscape Architects, was founded in 1953, when she moved to Vancouver. During her career she contributed to the designs of many high-profile buildings in both Canada and the United States, including the Robson Square and the Law Courts Complex in Vancouver, the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Chancery in Washington D.C., the Library Square at the Vancouver Public Library, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, and Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly Building in Yellowknife.

She designed Vancouver Cityscape Robson square

Quotes

• We have, as I have pointed out again and again, a great gift of nature in our landscape.
  • [1] when she returned to smith

• Landscape architects are a combination of artists, designers, choreographers and scientists; they must also be leaders, especially in dealing with the effects of climate change.
  • [2] when she learned that a $100,000 international landscape architecture prize was named in her honour

• I work with a concept driven by the idea that people want to be surrounded by nature—it is in our genes.
  • [3]Vancouver Sun

• The freedom to create, the freedom to think differently, was unlimited.
  • [4]when asked how Canada has shaped her career

• You lose a lot of friends, I look upon this as a life cycle.
  • [5]she says of the aging process.