A confluence of cultural and civic contexts

A memorial design commemorating an influential female performing artist with an “attention to context, beautiful story and sculptural form” was the winning entry in the inaugural Confluence, Inc. Landscape Architecture Studio Prize awarded by Iowa State’s department of landscape architecture in February.

Hossein Entezari, a second-year graduate student in landscape architecture at Iowa State, received the top prize of $3,000 for “Anna Halprin Memorial,” a project he developed in the fall 2020 “Memorial, Monuments and Memory” course.

The assignment: Design a medium-scale park for the area between Stephens Auditorium and Fisher Theater that would serve as a civic gateway connector between destinations and as an educational space.

Hossein’s design commemorates avant-garde dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin, known as a pioneer of postmodern and therapeutic dance.

“The site’s location in the midst of artistic and cultural collections has great potential for this purpose,” Hossein said in his winning presentation. “The biggest question was, what determines how the parts are arranged?”

Confluence, Inc. established the studio prize with a gift during Iowa State’s historic $1.5 billion Forever True, For Iowa State campaign to recognize outstanding student work, advance the landscape architecture discipline and elevate the department’s profile nationally. Confluence is one of the largest and most-decorated landscape architecture, urban design and planning firms in the Midwest.

       Read More Stories