2026-07-31
Welcome to Insights, conversations with creators in art and architecture.
I'm Victoria Newhouse.
Mary Margaret Jones is president and CEO of Hargraves Jones,
heading the firm's offices in New York City, San Francisco, and Cambridge.
Her decades in landscape architecture and planning have been significant around the world,
including designing Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, Scissortail Park in Oklahoma, Discovery Green in Houston,
Zaraidai Park in Moscow, and Chrissy Field in San Francisco, revitalizing cities, institutions, and communities.
She is the recipient of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and over 100 national and international awards.
Mary Margaret, it's been eight years since we last saw each other.
I was writing my book, Parks of the 21st Century, with Alex Pisha,
and we spent three absolutely wonderful days together traveling
across the United States to visit parks you had designed.
Right.
I remember it was hot.
What was great about it was traveling to these rivers.
They were mostly riverfront parks that we went to, if I remember correctly.
And they were in what I would call mid-tier cities.
And we have found, especially for a period of time in our practice,
that mid-tier cities were particularly desirous of transformation.
Particularly of their post-industrial riverfronts.