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BIOGRAPHY
1.
Bargmann recalls her childhood in New Jersey and the “landscapes that shaped me”: industrial sites along the northern New Jersey Turnpike and a suburb with a “collective backyard” that made the place “inclusive.”
2.
As an undergraduate art student, Bargmann gravitated towards the work of minimalists and land artists, including Eva Hesse and Robert Smithson. Outside of class, she was drawn to the sights and smells of Pittsburgh’s steelmaking industry.
3.
Bargmann reflects on her decision to study landscape architecture, the difference between making art and designing landscapes, and the influential teachers and classmates who shaped her design ethos.
4.
After Harvard, Bargmann spent a year in Italy as a Rome Prize recipient, an experience she fondly remembers as an incubator for cross-disciplinary friendships and conversations.
5.
While working for Michael Van Valkenburgh, Bargmann accepts a teaching position in Minneapolis and establishes a career trajectory defined by taking “adventures with the students.”
6.
Bargmann begins to shape the direction of her personal practice by visiting mines and working with Superfund sites, which she calls cultural landscapes. She focuses on the sites and their adjacent communities.
7.
Encouraged by her friend Beth Meyer, Bargmann, accepts a teaching position in Charlottesville and begins to research and explore industrial sites with her students.
8.
A reluctant Southerner, Bargmann is drawn to the “urbanity” of Charlottesville’s former factories and mills, where she finds community and space for creativity.
9.
A collaboration with artist Mel Chin in New Orleans shows Bargmann a new way of thinking and operating.
10.
Bargmann reflects on the relationships between clients and patrons, leaders and cities, and the need for mayors to be engaged with projects rather than just making decisions about them.
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DESIGN
1.
In establishing her professional practice, Bargmann defines her life’s work as a “mission” to “do the right thing” for industrialized sites and the communities surrounding them.
2.
Bargmann reflects on changing public attitudes towards industrial sites, and her experiences acting as a mentor for other practitioners working in industrial landscapes.
3.
After witnessing the effects of pollution, toxic waste, and other industrial byproducts on neighboring communities, Bargmann incorporates advocacy into her design practice.
4.
Bargmann reflects on developing her passion for plants, teaching about the “art and science” of plants to her students, and how that teaching is still evolving to address fallow and industrial landscapes.
5.
Bargmann discusses her love of “plants, materiality, and tactility” and her approach to reusing and repurposing rather than discarding found materials as part of a site-specific design palette.
6.
Bargmann distinguishes between “master plans,” which she sees as closed, and “action plans” that emphasize the importance of responsive and open engagement.
7.
Bargmann shares how the writings of her “hero,” the artist Robert Smithson, and his emphasis on process, “digging and finding,” and “slow looking,” have impacted her personally and professionally.
8.
Bargmann explains the necessity of acknowledging that chance will play a role in shaping a site, and the difficulty of articulating this truth to clients.
9.
Bargmann reflects on how assigning a site, especially fallow or industrial sites, with a name and identity helps people connect with it.
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PROJECTS
1.
Bargmann uses her home and garden in Charlottesville as grounds for experimentation.
2.
When working on the remediation of this formerly industrial site in Pennsylvania, Bargmann imagined her work as one part of the evolution of this cultural landscape.
3.
Collaboration with developer Philip Kafka of Prince Concepts produces an urban woodland in Detroit that creatively reused materials and artifacts found on-site.
4.
In Dallas, Bargmann transforms a former waterworks facility, on the residential property of a discerning client, into a tranquil, immersive space for entertaining.
5.
Working within the grand scale of Philadelphia’s Navy Yard, Bargmann embraced the area’s industrial character while creating an inviting workplace for a creative business.
6.
The CEO of Urban Outfitters, Inc., recalls how Bargmann integrated the industrial heritage of Philadelphia’s Navy Yard with elements of natural beauty to serve and inspire a creative workforce.
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