Sasaki, Hideo, 1919-2000

Hideo Sasaki was born on November 25, 1919, in Reedley, California.

He was an internationally renowned landscape architect who was as admired for his teaching and critical abilities as for his multidisciplinary approach to design, considering the historical, cultural, environmental, and social use of the land. In 1946, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois. In 1948, he graduated with a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard Design School. In 1953, he founded Sasaki Associates, in the Boston suburb of Watertown, while teaching at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, where he was chairman of the landscape architecture department from 1958 to 1968. He led the company's architects and planners in developing many noted commercial areas and corporate parks, e.g. Copley Square in Boston, Constitution Plaza in Hartford, Washington Square Village in Manhattan, many college campuses, One Maritime Plaza, San Francisco, California, and Euro Disneyland in Paris, France. The firm is still considered a leader in the field of landscape and urban design.

In 1961, he was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts by President John F. Kennedy and again by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. He was the first recipient of the American Society of Landscape Architects' medal in 1971, and in 1973, he received the Allied Professions Medal from the American Institute of Architects.

In 1951, he married Kisa Noguchi. He died on August 30, 2000, in Walnut Creek, California.