August 16, 2011
“I wanted students that would look at nature, not pave over it. The thing that really excited me was the potential combination of horticulture and landscape architecture. Nationally they had been growing further and further apart. I can’t separate the two. I don’t see them as isolated entities. If you are going to be involved with land planning, land development, or civil engineering, you should have appropriate knowledge of the plants you’re working with.” — John F. Collins, FASLA, on developing the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture at Temple University
 The stamp that John F. Collins, FASLA, placed on Temple University Ambler, the City of Philadelphia, and its surrounding suburbs isn’t difficult to discover.
Experience the gardens and pathways at the Ambler Campus. Take a walk along Market Street East or watch the water rush by in Schuylkill River Park. Marvel at the sustainable designs students in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and the Department of Community and Regional Planning create every semester. You’ll see Collins’ creativity, dedication, and determination everywhere you look.
Collins, the founding Chairman of Temple’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture, passed away on August 5 after many years of courageously battling Parkinson’s disease. He was 75. He is survived by his wife Sandra, children Kathleen, John, Christopher, and Matthew, and grandchildren Jean, Liam, and Paige.
While Temple has lost an important piece of its living history, Collin’s legacy will not soon diminish.
“John came to Temple in 1988 and was chair of the department for its first decade. It was John who established the four-year BSLA accredited program in Landscape Architecture and the four-year BS in Horticulture program,” said Dr. Mary Myers, RLA, ASLA, Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture. “John believed in hard work and hands-on application and began the design-build studio focusing on exhibits for the Philadelphia Flower Show. Many of the exhibits returned to campus to become actual gardens in the arboretum, such as the stormwater wetland garden.”
Myers said Collins’s practice background and great talent were influential in creating places of beauty in Philadelphia and at Ambler, such as a new arrival area for visitors near the Administration Building and the Native Formal and Shade Gardens.
“As I look around the campus I feel that his contributions added so much to people’s enjoyment of the campus and arboretum. One always sensed that John was a person of utmost integrity and immediately felt confidence in his judgment,” she said. “The new Master of Landscape Architecture program with its concentration on ecological restoration is an outgrowth of John’s focus on indigenous plants and the need to protect native plant communities. I am humbled by and continue to be inspired by John’s accomplishments, imagination and vision.”
During an interview for the unveiling of a retrospective of his work in the Ambler Learning Center in 2007 — now a permanent exhibit of 29 pieces thanks to a generous donation of the remarkable drawings by him and his family — Collins said his interest in landscape architecture was “pretty straightforward.”
“I had a love of art — my mother was an art teacher and I always assumed I’d become an illustrator,” he said. “I had also cultivated a love of nature from a young age and throughout my life. I felt that anything that combined those two elements would be a great deal of fun — and it was.”
 In 1963, Collins co-founded the firm of Adleman, Collins & DuTot in Philadelphia with colleagues Marvin Adleman and David DuTot. Later, this firm became Collins, DuTot & Associates and in 1971, the firm joined with others to form The Delta Group, a regional landscape architecture, planning, engineering and architecture firm that tackled projects such as the revitalization of Market Street East in the 1980s —— the firm received numerous awards and honors for their planning and involvement in environmental projects.
Collins arrived at Temple with literally decades of experience designing award-winning projects that helped to shape the greenways of Philadelphia and well beyond. He also had a proven record of teaching young professionals, serving as a lecturer, professor, and visiting studio critic at major landscape architecture programs at the University of Pennsylvania; Penn State, where he received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree in 1959; Harvard, where he received his Master of Landscape Architecture degree in 1962; Cornell; Drexel; the University of Virginia; and Louisiana State. He also developed horticultural therapy programs to help prison inmates and established community and teaching gardens in Philadelphia for public school children.
Bonnie Frumer, Temple University Ambler Assistant Dean for Curriculum, said Collins was perfect for the job of getting the four-year programs in landscape architecture and horticulture off the ground.
“John had so many accomplishments and was very well respected in the field of landscape architecture, but he was never one to brag about anything,” she said. “I, of course, visited Market Street East often and enjoyed the parks in the city that he created but it was only years later that I learned the integral part he played in their creation and greening of the city.”
Collins’ complete focus was on “making professionals out of his students,” Frumer said.
“His sole focus was on education. He was practical and taught sustainability before anyone was ever talking about it,” she said. “He instilled in students the importance of the fields of horticulture and landscape architecture and planning as well, which has become an essential part of Temple’s School of Environmental Design programs today.”
 While at Temple, Collins created a new master plan for the Ambler Campus and led an extensive program to directly involve students in design-build projects. Many new projects were completed on campus, including the Cottage Hall courtyard; new pergolas and stonework around the entrance near the Administration Building; gardens for native plants, groundcovers and herbs; handicapped ramps and new ramps leading from Dixon Hall to the formal gardens; a ring road to route traffic around the campus — the central campus roadways became primarily for pedestrian traffic; and the sustainable wetland garden. Collins also established a native plant nursery as a teaching, research, and plant production facility.
Collins was also a strong advocate for the Ambler Campus being designated an arboretum, a dream that became a reality in 2000.
Wendy Lebing, Assistant Dean of Temple’s Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs program who worked with Collins for several years in scheduling and marketing for the Landscape Architecture and Horticulture Department, said she continues to be “impressed by the many ways (Collins) transformed Temple University Ambler, which we continue to enjoy today in the multitude of lovely plantings, landscape elements, and vistas he designed, then implemented with the help of students.”
“One example was the transformation of the entrance of Cottage Hall, which he changed from a dull, cement walkway to a welcoming environment, which invites pedestrians to study in a lovely enclosure,” she said. “John had a vision for the campus, which he achieved through relentless passion and hard work.”
As faculty members in the early years of the four year programs, said Pauline Hurley-Kurtz, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture, “we were all impressed by John’s conviction that our professions could improve the environment and effect positive social change.”
“He challenged us to take on large urban projects so our students would appreciate the importance of vibrant cities and neighborhoods and he set professional standards of excellence in the quality of the work. John emphasized collaboration between professions — also evidenced in the multi-disciplinary firm he led — the Delta Group,” she said. “The body of work he produced with his colleagues focused on the public realm and included large and small scale projects in Philadelphia such as Chestnut Street Park and the Society Hill Greenway, in addition to projects in Alaska; Salem, MA; and Armagh, Ireland. The living landscape laboratory that John established at the Ambler Campus, the public spaces he designed with the Delta Group in the Philadelphia area and the John Collins Drawing Collection at the Ambler Learning Center will continue to inspire us with his commitment to craft, sustainability and excellence in planning, landscape architecture, and horticulture.”
Linda Lowe, Ambler’s Director of Development and Alumni Affairs, said in addition to the permanent exhibit of Collins’ work that visitors to campus will be able to enjoy for years to come, an endowed scholarship that will honor his legacy at Ambler was established in 2008.
“The John Collins Scholarship will continue to financially support students in their junior year in the disciplines of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture who demonstrate strong leadership ability and a commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration. The John Collins Drawing Award was also established in 2010 to recognize the exceptional drawing ability and good citizenship displayed by a senior landscape architecture student,” she said. “John Collins was an exceptional person. I was touched by his sincere interest in helping people become better individuals.”
To learn more about John Collins, visit www.temple.edu/ambler/news/368-collinsfeature.htm.
Donations in remembrance of John Collins may be made to the National Parkinson’s Foundation, Gift Processing Center, Box 5018, Hagerstown, Md. 21741.
Our thoughts and prayers go to John Collins’s family at this time. Our great thanks go to Mr. Collins for building upon Temple University Ambler’s rich history and laying the foundation for decades of sustainable projects and initiatives that followed. His legacy is all around us.
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