Building Commons and Community by Karl Linn

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 19 No. 1 (Spring 2009) ISSN: 1546-2250 Building Commons and Community Linn, Karl (2008). Oakland, CA: New Village Press; 376 pages. $29.95. ISBN 9780976605478. Sometimes in life we have the good fortune to meet human beings whose energy effervesces and inspires. This biased book review reflects my good fortune to meet Karl Linn, the author, at the American Community Gardening Association conference in 2001. His personal presentation of much of what the book contains held a similar glee to that of a child tasting the first cherry tomato that she ever grew. Linn’s enthusiasm for the processes of community development work appears in Building Commons and Community, Linn’s professional autobiography, published posthumously. Linn spent his life creating community and using gardens in many instances to do that work. Gardens require the building of humus throughout their existence, and Linn’s departing gift has the rich content of humus that can transform over time to build new common ground and sprout new projects. The book is a five-decade photomontage with text that will inspire coming generations of landscape architects, artists, activists, community development teams, educators and planners. The chapters each represent participatory projects and include many cities, generations and common causes. Reviewing this book requires a brief review of Linn’s life, because his endeavors around the world develop organically from his life process. Linn began life in Germany where his mother had a fruit orchard. In 1934 he fled to Palestine with his family to escape Nazi Germany. He trained first in agriculture, then started an elementary school gardening program in Tel Aviv so that children could have fresh food for lunch. He helped found a kibbutz, then moved to Switzerlandto 355 train in psychoanalysis. When he came to the U.S., he cofounded a school for emotionally disturbed children and had a private practice in child psychology in New York. He turned to landscape architecture in 1952, and his design approach was always to create places to bring people together, most often involving the users themselves in designing and building these spaces. From inner-city Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, to offices in New York, to MIT, to Berkeley where a community garden now grows in his honor, Linn dedicated his life to empowering children, youth and adults to work together to change their neighborhoods into safe and beautiful places. The book contains Linn’s principles for developing commons, both short-term and permanent. It is not written as a text, but as a memoir of the process of engaging in social democracy through the creation of spaces for people to connect with one another, nature and the built environment. In one chapter, Linn recounts the making of an instant memorial to Martin Luther King as a response to his assassination by students and faculty at MIT. What had begun as an academic architectural exercise searching for a theme after King’s murder became a powerful community place and event. Constructing testimonial boards and planting red geraniums, people created a space where they and others could communally mourn this national tragedy. Linn also facilitated many permanent installations, creating parks, courtyards and community gardens. Linn’s book does not so much celebrate not him an as individual artist, but rather the creative, community building process. Reviewer Information Pevec, Illène Illène Pevec is a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. ...