Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us…

This year marks the 125 anniversary of the founding of ASLA, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and today marks the 111th anniversary of the founding of BSLA, ASLA’s first local chapter.

“The Boston Society of Landscape Architects was organized January 23, 1913, with twenty-seven Charter Members….” 

Transactions of the American Society of Landscape Architects, 1909-1921

Read about our origin story here.

The goals set by our chapter in its early years—supporting local communities of practice while also serving as a professional voice and advocate on larger issues—are still upheld our chapter, as well as other local ASLA chapters today.

Images:

On the calendar: BSLA’s first chapter president, Harvard Professor James Sturgis Pray. Landscape architect Arthur Shurtliff was Vice-President, and Fletcher Steele served as Secretary/Treasurer.

Below, the audience at one of BSLA’s “Inside/Out” site tours in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fall 2023, includes a mix of landscape architects, emerging (and retired) professionals, students, faculty, municipal leaders, and community members and keeps one of the very first activities of the chapter — “field visits” — active more then a century later.