Landscape Institute
The Landscape Institute was founded in 1929 as the Institute of Landscape Architects. It is the Royal Chartered institute for landscape architects. As a professional body the institute works to improve the planning and design of the urban and rural landscape, accredit university courses and promote the professional development of landscape architects.
The Institute built up a collection of library books and archives relating to the practice of design and management with the purpose of creating a national landscape collection. The library was formally established in 1967 with the archive collections starting in the 1990s as landscape architects died and their collections were bequeathed, donated, or actively collected by the Institute.
Access to the collections was initially for Institute members only, but over time researchers and the wider public have been using the collections in all manner of work. The library includes books and journals about landscape architecture, garden history and landscape and urban planning. The archive contains press cuttings, minutes, membership lists, financial papers, Institute publications, slide library and an album containing the Institute’s royal seal, logo and name badge.
The associated archive collections include the business records of significant landscape architects including founder member of the Institute Geoffrey Jellicoe.
Associated collections
- Michael Brown collection
- Brenda Colvin collection
- Sylvia Crowe collection
- Preben Jakobsen collection
- Geoffrey Jellicoe collection
- Susan Jellicoe photographic collection
- Peter Shepheard collection
- Clifford Tandy photographic collection
- Marian Thompson collection
- Milner-White & Son collection
- Moore, Piet & Brookes collection
- Corrine Renow-Clarke Collection
- Derek Lovejoy Partnership
- Huddart, L A Collection
- Blayney, J B Collection
The video below offers an overview of The Landscape Collections at The Museum of English Rural Life:
More information
- The corporate records of the Landscape Institute have been catalogued with the reference number SR LI. A catalogue for SR LI is available on the online database or you can see a handlist of the whole collection here.
- A Landscape Explorer guide has been produced to provide students with landscape themed dissertation topic ideas and resources suggestions.
- Processing of collections received from the LI continues. Much of the original deposit is now catalogued and available to view via our Reading Room. To order material: search our archive and library enterprise catalogue here; then book an appointment with our Reading Room and by contacting merl@reading.ac.uk.
- Keep up to date with the Landscape Institute project at the Museum of English Rural Life with our Discovering the Landscape series of blog posts.
- Further information on the Landscape Institute is available here.
- Find out more about the Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading (FOLAR)
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Looking for a specific item?
We are regularly updating the collections that we publish on our website but if you are after something specific that you can't find online, then drop by for a visit or feel free to contact us and we will be happy to help you.