April 2005
Urban Impressionist
Publication: Continental Magazine, Vol. 9/4
Title: Urban Impressionist
Author: Kate Grip Denon
James Burnett likes to make an impression. A lasting one. Proof of this is sprinkled in cities around the world. Burnett is the founder of the Office of James Burnett, a landscape architecture firm in Houston and in Solana Beach, Calif. He is responsible for enhancing the look of corporations, hospitals, and educational institutions. However, an assortment of urban park projects has recently garnered him a reputation as a modern-day Frederick Law Olmsted.
Burnett’s choice of landscape architecture over building design wasn’t entirely due to a passion for the outdoors. “I was fascinated by a presentation in college on planning and landscape architecture,” he says. “Instead of fire exits, there were fountains and changing plants, and I learned if you work outside, that’s where the fun is.”
In pursuit of that passion, Burnett earned a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from Louisiana State University, and after five years of working at a large architectural firm, he opened The Office of James Burnett in 1989.
Burnett’s big break came when he was approached by the firm from which he was renting office space. They wanted to collaborate on a pitch for a large replacement hospital. “We won the job,” he says, “because we were the only [group] that talked about garden and nature’s role in the healing environment.”
Fifteen years and 14 additional employees later, Burnett practices that same philosophy, but on a larger scale, creating inspiring public spaces. “These [parks] are monument landscapes,” says Burnett. The Park at Lakeshore East in Chicago, slated for completion this month, is the latest urban park oasis created by him and his team. The modern 6-acre park, on an area of land where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan, contains a dog park, a children’s park, walking paths, and prairie grass, perennial, and water gardens.
“My staff comments to me all the time, “Isn’t it great that [these spaces] will be used for generations to come,” Burnett says. “We’re planting things that will withstand the elements for hundreds of years.”