JULY 13, 2010
Speaker: Susan Rademacher, Parks Curator for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy
As Parks Curator for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy since 2007, Susan is responsible for revealing, preserving, and promoting the cultural significance of the Pittsburgh Parks. She oversees planning and design of capital projects, develops design standards, and investigates the cultural, landscape, and social history of park landscapes.
Susan was founding Executive Director of Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy in 1991, leading the Conservancy in producing a nationally renowned master plan, completing numerous historic restoration projects, securing major national grants, creating a volunteer program that has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars of value in ecological restoration, and increasing public awareness and appreciation of the Kentucky city’s acclaimed system of Olmsted-designed parks and parkways.
At the same time, Susan served as Assistant Director of Louisville’s Metro Parks Department, establishing the Planning and Design Division. In that capacity, she was responsible for master planning, capital project development, and construction for the entire system of 122 parks and 6 parkways, golf courses, and community centers. Major projects included strategic planning for a 7,000-acre expansion of the parks system known as the 21st Century Parks project, creating the Shawnee Parks Sports Complex, restoring Frederick Law Olmsted’s Baringer Hill in Cherokee Park, reconstructing the historic Iroquois Amphitheater, and re-launching the Mayor’s Committee for Public Art.
Susan was the Editor in Chief of Landscape Architecture magazine from 1984-1987, and was a founding editor of Garden Design magazine. She is the author of several books and numerous articles in the field of landscape architecture, and has lectured and taught at many American institutions and universities, including the Smithsonian Institution, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, J. B. Speed Art Museum, Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, the University of Pennsylvania, U.C. Berkeley, and Harvard University. Born in Columbus, Georgia, Susan graduated from Miami University and was a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Design at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
Squirrel Hill Historical Society 