The Landscape Architecture program at Cornell has perhaps enjoyed more home bases, physical locations and interactions with sister departments than any unit at Cornell University. Begun in the late 1890s, the Outdoor Art Program was situated in the new College of Agriculture in 1904, founded by Dean Liberty Hyde Bailey. While instruction in horticulture and nature study took place in the Ag School, other courses such as drafting, mathematics, and figure drawing occurred in the School of Architecture, the second oldest architecture program in the country. Its offerings, plus those in agriculture, created a unique landscape architecture curriculum which was recognized as one of the nation’s top programs. During the early years students received instruction in a variety of locations including drafting studios shared with the architects in White Hall, numerous unoccupied offices in the newly-built agriculture building (Roberts Hall), and finally, in a renovated poultry building overlooking Beebe Lake.

Bailey’s commitment was to design in the rural landscape, hence the program names of “Outdoor Art”, “Rural Art” and “Landscape Design. ” The faculty and students, however, were called landscape architects and felt torn between the two colleges. Similarly, some state legislators, who provided funding for the school, also “considered landscape art in a farmers’ college something of a joke." With the retirement of

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Dean Bailey in 1913, the situation became increasingly more precarious. When an invitation to join its college was proffered by the College of Architecture in the early 1920s, the offer was readily accepted.

By 1930 two tracks of landscape architecture instruction had developed on the Cornell campus: a professionally accredited master’s degree in the College of Architecture, and a horticulture degree with a focus on landscape design in the College of Agriculture. As in the earliest years of the program, students moved back and forth between the two colleges taking courses together and working under the same instructors. While the focus and rigor in the two programs were somewhat different, it was an unusual example of collaboration and interdepartmental cooperation on campus.

The years following World War II brought major and unfortunate changes. The Depression and war years transformed the profession of landscape architecture which shifted to a new focus on planning and large-scale design. In the College of Architecture, the program emerged as a landscape planning degree still accredited by LAAB. However, by the early 1960s, with a lack of leadership and a loss of faculty in AAP, the landscape architecture program had withered away.

At the same time, however, licensure for professional landscape architects became law in New York State. Enjoying this new impetus, the Ag School program drew increasing numbers of students. Professor Marvin Adleman, hired in 1972, built the program and faculty toward professional accreditation. Stimulated by the new growth of the profession, the College of Art, Architecture and Planning agreed to reestablish the earlier master’s degree, with the two programs sharing faculty and facilities. Thus, as the Department of Landscape Architecture approaches its centennial the two programs stretch across the Cornell campus with faculty and studios in two colleges, with students taking courses throughout the university and the degree programs once again being hailed as among the best in the nation.