books / articles / essays
"The Tragedy of the Commons," a book review of Vision & Place: John Wesley Powell & Reimagining the Colorado River Basin, in Landscape Architecture Magazine, June 2021. Edited by Jason Robison, University of Wyoming College of Law; Daniel McCool, University of Utah; and Thomas Minckley, University of Wyoming; published by the University of California Press, 2020.
On May 24, 1869, Major John Wesley Powell launched his famous voyage down the Green and Colorado rivers to explore the "Great Unknown.” Vision & Place, marks the sesquicentennial of this legendary explorer's journey and is an essential primer on Powell's influence on the key issues relating to the future management of the Colorado River Basin and surrounding region.
Ruth Shellhorn, a book about the pioneer landscape architect who helped define "the Southern California look" of midcentury Southern California with such visionary projects as Disneyland, Bullock’s Pasadena, Bullock’s Fashion Square Santa Ana, and a Landscape Master Plan for the University of California at Riverside.
Published by University of Georgia Press and Library of American Landscape History, 2016.
Palisades Forestry Committee, an ongoing project sponsored by the City of Los Angeles Urban Forestry Division to develop a manual of specific guidelines for community engagement in the acquisition, planting design, installation, and maintenance of street trees, 2019-present.
“Ruth Shellhorn’s Garden for Norman and Dorothy Chandler,” an article for Eden, the Quarterly Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society, Winter 2019, Volume 22, Number 1.
Read
"Dreams and Regrets," a book review of Shopping Town: Designing the City in Suburban America,
by Victor Gruen, edited and translated by Anette Baldauf; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017,
in Landscape Architecture Magazine, July 2018.
Read
"The Brothers Behind Disney's Magical Landscapes," an online essay about landscape architects Jack and Morgan "Bill" Evans, members of Walt Disney's original design team at Disneyland, for The Cultural Landscape Foundation.
Read
"Trails of Trees: The J. Paul. Getty Center Turns 20 - OLIN's Mountainside Design Stands the Test of Time," Landscape Architecture Magazine, October 2017.
Read
"Securing the Ruth Patricia Shellhorn Papers," VIEW, The Magazine of the Library of American Landscape History, Summer 2016, Number 16.
Read pages 2 - 7
"Ruth Patricia Shellhorn: Mid-Century Living in the Southern California Landscape," Women, Modernity, and Landscape Architecture, edited by Sonja Duempelmann and John Beardsley, Rutledge, 2015.
“The Afterlife of Trees,” Eden: Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society, Spring 2013, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 12.
"Ruth Shellhorn: Landscape Architect of Fantasy," an article about Ruth Shellhorn’s contribution to the original design of Disneyland, VIEW, The Magazine of the Library of American Landscape History, Summer 2012, Number 12.
Read
"Ruth Patricia Shellhorn," an essay in Shaping the American Landscape, edited by Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FARR, and Stephanie S. Foell, University of Virginia Press, 2009. Also includes a companion online component, and an oral history interview with Shellhorn, for The Cultural Landscape Foundation.
Read
“China’s Emerging National Parks,” Landscape Architecture Magazine, cover story and photographs, May/June 1986, p.40-47.
Accessible Trails: A Case Study at Malibu Creek State Park, a study of accessibility design prepared, a decade before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, National Park service, 1980.
cultural landscape
Landslide 2020: Women Take The Lead, an online exhibition about threatened and at-risk landscapes, timed to the centennial of women’s right to vote, focused on sites across the country designed by women. The exhibition features twenty new video interviews with landscape architects, artists, educators, and stewards who discuss the sites, their designers, and the challenges and opportunities women face today. Included is a section about Disneyland and the design contribution made by landscape architect Ruth Shellhorn, with two videos about her work:
https://tclf.org/sites/default/files/microsites/landslide2020/disneyland.html
Morgan “Bill” Evans, professional materials collection, 2016-present.
The Langham Huntington, Pasadena, a cultural landscape report for an iconic, privately-owned hotel, 2019.
Los Angeles estate in Hancock Park, a cultural landscape report for a 1928 private home and a garden designed by Paul J. Howard, 2019.
The Stairways of Castellammare, an illustrated cultural landscape history survey, funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust, 2009.
film / web
“Ruth Shellhorn: Midcentury Landscape Design in Southern California,” a documentary film produced by the Library of American Landscape History's North America by Design series, 2015.
Watch
The Read Learn Live Podcast
http://www.readlearnlivepodcast.com/landscape-architecture-california-style-ep-64-with-kelly-comras/
October 2019
"Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden,”a radio interview for the program, Cultivating Place, on Northstate Public Radio.
Listen
http://mynspr.org/post/cultivating-place-kelly-comras-landscape-architect-historian-and-auth