Science & Nature
‘Innovative’ Lurie Garden Earns Prestigious Landmark Award From Landscape Architects
Lurie Garden was designed with an eye toward creating views that make it appear as if Chicago’s skyscrapers rise directly from the prairie. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)
Compared to neighboring Grant Park, Lurie Garden in Millennium Park is still a relative youngster as Chicago’s green spaces go. But it’s officially reached an age at which it can be considered “distinguished.”
This week, the American Society of Landscape Architects announced Lurie Garden as the 2026 recipient of the organization’s Landmark Award, which honors a project completed within the last 15 to 50 years that “retains its original design integrity and contributes many benefits to the surrounding community.”
The three-acre Lurie Garden opened in 2004 and represented a significant departure from the formal design of many of Chicago’s other high-profile public gardens.
In its praise of the garden, the awards jury cited Lurie’s “innovative layering of prairie and marsh plantings” as well as its sustainable horticultural practices.
In just two decades, the garden has become a “globally recognized symbol and space for dialogue around urban landscape architecture,” the jury said.
The Seattle-based landscape architecture firm GGN designed Lurie Garden, having submitted an entry in a 2000 design competition. The firm continues to co-sponsor a summer apprenticeship at Lurie for emerging professionals in ecological horticulture.
The naturalistic planting scheme was created by Dutchman Piet Oudolf, the renowned garden designer who has also gained acclaim stateside for his work on New York City’s High Line. Oudolf continues to consult on Lurie’s plantings and collaborated with staff on a redesign undertaken this year.
A new area, called the Meadows, will feature a “dense mix of grasses punctuated by statement perennials,” according to garden officials. Some 5,000 new plants went in the ground in June.
Major repairs to the garden’s water feature and boardwalk, known as the Seam, are also in progress. Due to these projects, Lurie has been closed to visitors all summer and is expected to reopen to the public in September.
Contact Patty Wetli: [email protected]
