Toward Defining the Profession

Abstract

In this article, the professionalization of landscape architecture is placed into a chronological framework and analyzed within the context of the literature on professions, professionalization, and occupational history. It is thus determined that the professionalization of landscape architecture began with the founding of the professional society (the American Society of Landscape Architects) in 1899, and closed with the publication of a written code of ethics in 1927. By means of the code of ethics and the statement of professional practice, landscape architects in the United States defined their professional role for their colleagues and the public. In choosing to become professionals, early landscape architects sacrificed the income from “speculative profit” (for example, from the sale of nursery stock) in order to serve the public and, with architects and engineers, to share in the social status once reserved for lawyers, physicians, and the clergy. Although the scope and membership of the profession have broadened over the years, much of what early practitioners once struggled to define in the “Code” and the “Standards” remains as the traditional core of professional practice today.