Karl Linn (March 11, 1923 – February 3, 2005) was an American landscape architect, psychologist, educator, and community activist, best known for inspiring and guiding the creation of "neighborhood commons" on vacant lots in East Coast inner cities during the 1960s through 1980s.
Employing a strategy he called "urban barnraising," he engaged neighborhood residents, volunteer professionals, students, youth teams, social activists, and community gardeners in envisioning, designing, and constructing instant, temporary, and permanent gathering spaces in neighborhoods, on college campuses, and at sites of major conferences and events.
[2] Henny designed and supervised the building of a house, planted orchards, and named the property the Immenhof (literally: "bee colony farm").
At age 20, when a back injury limited his capacity to contribute physically to the work of the kibbutz, he moved to Tel Aviv to be closer to his brother Theo, who was guiding his intellectual development.
Influenced by the writings of A. S. Neill and Wilhelm Reich, Karl entered psychoanalysis to heal his personal wounds and become a more effective human being.
In 1959 he decided to accept the invitation of Ian McHarg to join the Landscape Architecture department at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, as the second full-time faculty member.
Using a participatory process they engaged residents with volunteer professionals and work teams in envisioning, designing, and constructing "neighborhood commons"—combination park / playground / community gathering places – on derelict vacant lots.
[6] While at Penn, Karl developed a strong friendship with architect Louis Kahn, a fellow professor, who became another important mentor and supporter.
Thereafter he inspired into being community design-and-build centers in eight other cities, and conducted community-design-service-education programs at various universities in the United States and abroad.
In Chicago, he collaborated with colleagues from a number of different cities to found the national organization Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) [7] and served as chair of its Committee on Education.
At the 1988 Congress of the International Federation of Landscape Architects in Boston, Karl recruited 20 colleagues to present papers at workshops on "Places for Peace" and published them in a book by that name.
After glasnost initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev lessened the threat of nuclear holocaust, Karl moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 1989 he collaborated with architect Carl Anthony, a long-time friend and colleague to found the Urban Habitat Program, initially sponsored by Earth Island Institute.
He believed strongly that guidelines to secure public land for community gardens should be incorporated in cities' general plans as was done in Seattle.
He worked hard to include such guidelines in Berkeley's General Plan, convinced that through the creation and use of accessible community garden commons, neighborhood blocks can become arenas for a new kind of extended family living.
[4] During the next two years Karl worked with volunteer wood artists, landscape architecture students, and AmeriCorps teams to revitalize the garden and add a handcrafted commons.
With an overflowing wait list for plots in the refurbished Karl Linn Community Garden, he set his sights on a large weed-filled vacant lot across the street where the light rail tracks of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) enter a tunnel.
The circular commons of the Peralta Garden, surrounded by a mosaic Snake Bench and colorful native California plants, is widely used for meetings, workshops, and special events by neighbors and organizations.
The same year Karl conceptualized the transformation of the nearby section of the Ohlone Greenway into an interpretive exhibit of the natural and cultural history of the area.
Artists, teachers, designers, engineers, and native plant restorationists worked tirelessly to develop and construct exhibits that evoke the Spanish ranchero period, the agricultural era, and the rich culture of the Ohlone people, who inhabited the area for at least 10,000 years.