Landscape Institute
Message from the Director
For over a century New Englanders have turned to certificate programs for studies in landscape design. The Landscape Institute of the Arnold Arboretum is the current embodiment of that lineage of landscape education programs. Over time the scope of the programs has steadily expanded—landscape design, garden design, garden architecture, site planning, landscape or garden history, landscape preservation—all disciplines pursued by our students and graduates and all centered on the art that gives direct physical expression to the relationships among individuals, society, and the landscape.
Our broad educational approach allows students to increase their knowledge and build the skills necessary to their own personal and professional goals. In turn, our students and alumni are crucial partners in the Arnold Arboretum's mission to "foster greater understanding, appreciation, and stewardship of the Earth's botanical diversity and its essential value to humankind."
Landscape studies are informed by our understanding of nature and the ways that we interact with it. Above all, we believe in the need to respect the environment and in the civilizing quality of gardens, and we strive to uphold those ideals in our gardens, parks, towns, and cities.
Like the disciplines it teaches, the Landscape Institute continues to evolve and today we have a new home in Cambridge on 29 Garden Street, a block beyond the Cambridge Common and Radcliffe Institute. We welcome you to the Institute and hope you will find landscape studies as fulfilling as we do.
John F. Furlong, Director of the Landscape Institute