Theodora Kimball Hubbard and the “Intellectualization” of Landscape Architecture, 1911–1935

Abstract

An important figure in landscape architecture history, Theodora Kimball Hubbard contributed to the field’s literature and to its intellectual theory. A librarian by training, Kimball began her career as the librarian of Harvard University’s School of Landscape Architecture. She went on to become a writer, editor, and critic, authoring numerous articles in Landscape Architecture and City Planning magazines, among others. In 1917, she co-authored, with Henry Vincent Hubbard, the first comprehensive textbook of landscape architecture. In 1920, while editing Frederick Law Olmsted Sr.’s papers for publication, she wrote an early history of modern landscape architecture. Another significant contribution to the field was her library classification system, completed in collaboration with Hubbard and James Sturgis Pray, for the fields of landscape architecture and city planning. These classifications influenced the re-conceptualization of landscape architecture and city planning as rational, ordered design sciences that could be developed through research. Kimball’s remarkable record of work has been hidden from history in part because she was a woman, and in part because she did not produce built works. However, her intellectual and collaborative pursuits influenced landscape architecture, and an examination of them sheds new light on the construction of landscape architectural history.