Cornelia Oberlander, 95, and Harriet Pattison, 88, began their careers when there were few women in design Cornelia Oberlander and Harriet Pattison knew of each other long before they met: In a field with few female practitioners at the time, they were often told of ?another? woman working in landscape architecture. It?s a testament not only to their pioneering careers, but how rare it was to be a woman working in their profession?which, in the early 1950s, was any aspect of design.
Even as the two women shared collaborators and cities, they did not meet in person until a few years ago. The modernists were reunited again last month as they shared the stage during an event at Palm Springs? annual Modernism Week. The panel was put on by The Cultural Landscape Foundation, which has published voluminous oral histories from both Oberlander and Pattison (as well as many other landscape architect icons).
The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Cornelia Hahn Oberlander (95) and Harriet Pattison (88) with Charles Birnbaum at Modernism Week. The image on the screen is Louis Kahn and a young Nathaniel Kahn.

Although their approaches to landscape architecture could not be more diametrically different, the women both recalled entering a field at a time when there were few female colleagues and even fewer female mentors. ?I believed all along that it was important for women to be working,? says Oberlander. ?I didn?t look right or left?I just kept going.?
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