The Landscape Architecture Department began with a four-year professional degree program in 1911, the first offered west of the Mississippi River. This initial degree program, Landscape Gardening, was a part of the Horticulture Department. From 1932 until 1947, the department was jointly administered by Oregon State College and the University of Oregon and provided instruction in landscape architecture for the Landscape Construction and Maintenance program in the Horticulture Department. The Department became part of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences after it was established in 1961, and beginning in the 1960s, students could complete an undergraduate humanities degree with a concentration in landscape architecture. During the early 1970s, the department name was changed to Architecture and Landscape Architecture. After 1982, Oregon State University no longer offered pre-professional programs in architecture or landscape architecture; some courses were transferred to the Horticulture Department.
Arthur L. Peck joined the faculty of Oregon Agricultural College in 1908 as Floriculturist and Landscape Gardener. He served as Professor of Landscape Architecture and Department Head until his retirement in 1949.
Donald Martel was professor of landscape architecture at Oregon State from 1947 until 1974 and was involved in planning of campus landscaping. Martel earned a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture from the University of Oregon and served in the Army Corps of Engineers in Europe during World War II. He died in Corvallis in 2004.
The Landscape Architecture Department Records document curriculum and instruction in landscape architecture at Oregon State University, department administration, extension activities, campus planning, and faculty research and publications. Departmental administrative records include correspondence, annual and biennial reports, staff memos and meeting minutes, budgets, and an external department review conducted in 1980. Curriculum and course proposals, field trip records, and lecture notes and drawings document the courses and degree programs offered by the deapartment.
Materials pertaining to highway improvement, garden clubs, the Oregon Roadside Council, State Planning Board, and landscape design study courses are included in the collection. The landscape architecture faculty were active in campus planning; the department records include materials pertaining to Physical Plant administration, campus plans developed by A.D. Taylor, campus roads, and landscaping for new campus buildings constructed in the 1930s.
The collection includes correspondence, speeches, notes, and publications written and assembled by Arthur L. Peck and Donald Martel.
The records include photographs assembled by faculty for instruction and publications. They include images of gardens, landscape features at homes and public buildings, trees and shrubs, campus views, and students. In addition to Corvallis and Oregon, the photographs depict gardens and landscape features in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, and southern California. The bulk of the photographs are b/w prints; the collection also includes a few color prints, color transparencies, and b/w negatives.
Collection is open for research.
Landscape Architecture Department Records (RG 089), Oregon State University Archives, Corvallis, Oregon.
This collection is not fully processed; this guide is preliminary.
The materials were transferred from the department to the Archives in several accessions from 1974 through 1983.
Additional materials pertaining to the Landscape Architecture
Department are in the