Mark Laird

Biography

Mark Laird is Associate Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, and has a consultancy in historic landscape conservation with bases in Toronto and the UK. Prior to his appointment in 2016, he was for fifteen years Senior Lecturer in the History of Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. He has been a research fellow at Chelsea Physic Garden, London, and twice a fellow, then senior fellow, at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC. He has published and lectured in Europe and North America. His research on eighteenth-century planting in English pleasure grounds was published, with his watercolour reconstruction drawings, in The Flowering of the Landscape Garden (1999). He co-edited Mrs. Delany & Her Circle (2009) for exhibitions at the Yale Center for British Art and the Soane Museum. His most recent book is A Natural History of English Gardening 1650-1800 (2015). As a consultant, he has advised on sites in Europe and North America: Hestercombe, Gibside, Wrest Park, and Strawberry Hill in England; Fürst-Pückler-Park in Germany; the Belvedere Garten in Austria; the Halifax Public Gardens, Grange Park, and Allan Gardens in Canada; and Vimy Ridge in France. For replanting work at Painshill Park, England, where he is an Associate Director, he was a joint recipient of a 1998 Europa Nostra medal.

Research Interest

His research on eighteenth-century planting in English pleasure grounds was published, with his watercolour reconstruction drawings, in The Flowering of the Landscape Garden (1999). He co-edited Mrs. Delany & Her Circle (2009) for exhibitions at the Yale Center for British Art and the Soane Museum. His most recent book is A Natural History of English Gardening 1650-1800 (2015).