Papers of Richard Webel

Richard K. Webel was a virtuoso practitioner of the high art of European landscape architecture throughout the 20th century. His adult life spanning seventy years, from his graduate studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design to his retirement in the early nineties, attests to a highly prolific career against 20th-century change and defining moments of modernism.

Webel's perspectives towards landscape architecture as a force for noble living were formed during the early years of his career when he was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome (1926 –1929), following his graduate studies at Harvard. During his residency, Webel studied Renaissance gardens and collaborated with architects and sculptors at the Academy on numerous projects. Upon his return from Rome, Webel joined Harvard's faculty and taught at the Graduate School of Design from 1930 to 1939.

Webel's teaching career ran in tandem with his practice. In 1931, Webel joined Umberto Innocenti, an Italian landscape architect and an accomplished plantsman, to form Innocenti and Webel and practiced for sixty years both within the U.S. and abroad. Innocenti and Webel's works range across a wide array of project types, including residential, institutional, and cultural. Some notable projects include Marshall Field Residence (1932), Netherlands and Italian Pavilions at the 1939 World's Fair (1939), Furman University (1952), and Milliken and Company Headquarters (1958). Innocenti died in 1968, leaving Webel to lead the practice for another twenty years. Janet Darling Webel, Richard Webel's spouse who died in 1966, was a member of Innocenti and Webel before starting her own practice known as Darling and Webel.

Webel died in 2000, leaving behind an expansive body of work in academia and private practice that bridges traditional and modern perspectives amidst the changing culture of landscape architecture in the 20th century.