“You know he taught me to see, but he also taught a whole generation of architects, planners, and landscape architects to see…” -Carl Anthony remembers Karl Linn
In Episode 2, Anna Goodman describes a shift in the way architects in the United States viewed community starting in the early 1960s. Using audio clips from participants in an experimental park and playground built under that leadership of the influential community designer Karl Linn, it documents a transition from practices that linked community to the space of the neighborhood to those that focused instead on process.
Download“You know he taught me to see, but he also taught a whole generation of architects, planners, and landscape architects to see…” -Carl Anthony remembers Karl Linn
“I went to a national meeting for the American Society of Landscape Architects and Ian McHarg invited me to join the faculty…” -Karl Linn, Media Archive
“I took my students into North Philadelphia…” -Karl Linn, Media Archive
“The deck is stacked against a child trying to grow up in this North Philadelphia neighborhood…” -Marciarose Shestack, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“We were anxious to have the people of West Poplar take some action…” -Francis Bosworth, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“Mr. Bosworth came back one evening telling us that he was able to secure this land for the community…” -Karl Linn, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“…a place which would bring neighbors together, a commons…” -Marciarose Shestack and Karl Linn, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“…this we tried, in part as a designer, not to create only an outdoor room, but an outdoor apartment…” -Karl Linn, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“So over a while, we developed a concept of creating neighborhood commons…” -Karl Linn, Media Library
“Karl Linn initiated the idea of using salvaged materials, which would be durable and attractive…” -Marciarose Shestack, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“…Mrs. Miles felt very strongly about the need for people in the community to do something themselves about their neighborhood…” -Marciarose Shestack and Bernice Miles, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“…they always come back, there’s a similar comment, some kid got ahold of them and told them ‘mister we built that’…” -Karl Linn, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“There was a continuing paradox for Karl because even as he was committed to building these commons…” -Carl Anthony remembers Karl Linn
“There was some resentment against the outside volunteers, some resentment against the use of salvaged material here…” -Marciarose Shestack, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“They became so successful that they had to establish a non-profit corporation to recruit professional volunteers to whom students would then be apprentices…” -Karl Linn, Media Archive
“Karl Linn’s volunteer organizations and the community leaders were working in the dark…” -Marciarose Shestack, “Melon Park: A Neighborhood Builds a Playground”
“So what was important is not necessarily the building of a specific environment, but that we were able to structure the planning, designing, and building of our surrounding…” -Karl Linn, “Green Theater” at Ball State University
Writer and Producer
Anna Goodman
Issue Editor
Anna Goodman
Senior Editors
Joseph Bedford and Curt Gambetta
Production Assistant
Ethan Curtis
Announcer
Trudy Watt
Interview
Carl Anthony
Special Thanks
Verona Fonte, New Village Press, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, and Portland State University’s College of the Arts