David Bohnett Speeches

“Historic Architecture and Landscape Preservation Award” presented to David Bohnett and Tom Gregory

Thank you very much, Tom and I are honored to receive this award.

Historic architecture and cultural landscapes represent the combined works of nature and of man and are illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces both internal and external.(1)

The core inspiration of our work to preserve historic architecture and cultural landscapes is our belief that helping people connect with nature, art, and architecture promotes personal and spiritual growth and cultural harmony. Specifically, I believe this is accomplished by creating a landscape plan that demonstrates respect for site and the surrounding environment.

We attempt to preserve and restore as many natural features in both landscape and architecture, incorporating native materials and planting elements, guided overall by maintaining appropriate scale, density, and proportion.

When we are in the middle of a project, faced with a decision about landscaping or architecture, I try and step back and say are we doing this for ourselves, or, are we doing this because it is the right thing to do for the site, for the environment, for the neighborhood. The answer, for me, is that doing the right thing for the site, for the environment, and the neighborhood is making the correct decision for ourself. I hope that our efforts serve as an example for others to do the right thing.

Thank you very much.

(1) http://www.ahlp.org/docs/about.html