The Environmental Design Archives and the Environmental Design Library were each the recipients of substantial gifts from the estate of Richard A. (Viggie) Vignolo, who passed away on May 28, 2012. Mr. Vignolo was a prominent landscape architect who collaborated with Lawrence Halprin’s firm to design the master plan and landscaping for the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem and the Benjamin Franklin Hall in Berlin. Mr. Vignolo received his BS in Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley in 1950 and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1953. The bequests will establish an endowment to support the library’s collection of landscape architecture books and journals and will contribute to preserving landscape collections and making them available.

Additional information about the Richard Vignolo archival collection can be found on the Design Archives website.

 

The Environmental Design Archives also received a generous gift from the estate of architect Kinji Imada (1927-2005) in honor of his partner architect Claude Oakland (1919-1989).

Claude Oakland studied architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans and met Bruce Goff serving with the Seabees construction battalion during World War II. After the war Oakland joined Goff in practice in Berkeley. Shortly thereafter, Oakland began work for Anshen + Allen, where he acted as principal designer for Eichler homes starting in 1950. Ten years later, contracted directly with Oakland, who designed for him until Eichler’s death in1974. Kinji Imada received his Master’s in architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Beginning in 1952, Imada worked for two summers at Anshen + Allen, where he met Oakland. When Oakland founded his own firm in 1960, he asked Imada to join him. The firm became Oakland & Imada, Architects in the 1970s. Oakland died in 1989, and the firm continued until Imada retired in 2000.  He died in 2005. The bequest will be used by the archives to help make the Oakland & Imada Collection and other architectural collections available for use.

Ph: Oakland & Imada, College of Environmental Design Archives