Kelly Comras

Landscape Architecture, California Style – Ep 64 with Kelly Comras

Landscape architect Ruth Shellhorn helped define the distinctive mid-century regional aesthetic of Southern California. Most well known for her work with Walt Disney on the original design of Disneyland, she also designed original landscape plans for the Bullock’s department stores and Fashion Square shopping centers, a landscape master plan for the University of California at Riverside, and a number of private gardens and estates for post-war movie stars, and the business and financial leaders of the Los Angeles region. She developed a distinctive palette of plant materials and her landscape designs refined an indoor-outdoor living concept that perfectly expressed the exuberance and optimism of the “Southern California look.”

Kelly Comras is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a member of the State Bar of California. Her landscape architectural practice focuses on community-based open space design, research, and publication in the field of cultural landscape. She is a founding member of the The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s Stewardship Council, Past-President of the California Garden & Landscape History Society, and Chaired the Editorial Board for the journal, Eden. She lectures at such institutions as Harvard Graduate School of Design, Society of Architectural Historians, California Preservation Foundation, and others. Her book, Ruth Shellhorn, was released in 2016.

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