Lester Collins (landscape architect)

Collins traveled to Japan in 1953 to work for a year on the translation of an ancient Japanese book.

[1] He then studied landscape architecture at Harvard, traveling in 1940 to East Asia with John Ormsbee Simonds, a fellow student.

[1] During World War II, in 1942, he joined the American Field Service, placed in North Africa,[2] and then served in the British Eighth Army.

[3][4] On a Fulbright scholarship, Collins traveled to Japan in 1953 to work for a year with Fuku Ikawa on the translation into English of an ancient Japanese book about gardens, Sensai Hisho.

With architect Walter Gropius, he created a "healing garden" for the new Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago.