Jens Jensen Park Receives the Bob Robinson Award
Release Date: Nov. 13, 2007
Contact: Kelly Huegel, Communications Manager
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Phone: 847.579.3136 November 13, 2007
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill., November 13, 2007— Jens Jensen Park has been awarded the Bob Robinson Award for outstanding achievement in preservation by the Highland Park Historic Preservation Commission. This award is an honor because it is only given out in years when a project is presented that warrants such special recognition.
Jens Jensen Park is named in honor of the famed landscape architect Jens Jensen. Jensen’s designs drew heavily from the Midwestern landscape for inspiration and made extensive use of native plants and materials. Jens Jensen Park is the only park in Highland Park designed by Jensen, a Ravinia resident and nationally known landscape architect. In it are Jensen’s trademarks: native shrubs and trees, natural materials and a stone council ring. The large boulder in the middle of the ring is a memorial to Augusta (Mrs. Julius) Rosenwald, Jensen’s patron and friend. The park was restored and dedicated to Jensen in 1980.
Over time, the Jensen design was lost as trees and plants were replaced. The original reflecting pool was filled in and covered with flagstones around 1940. In 2003, Elliott Miller presented the original plans at a symposium on historic landscape restoration sponsored by the Highland Park Historic Preservation Commission. The Friends of Jens Jensen Park formed to work with the Park District of Highland Park on the restoration. Applegate Patera Landscape Architects were obtained to update the original plan with currently available plant materials. Groundbreaking was in 2005 and Jens Jensen Park was rededicated on September 16, 2007.
For more information please visit our website, www.pdhp.org or call 847.831.3810.
About the Park District of Highland Park
The Park District of Highland Park, founded in 1909, operates and manages over 600 acres of land in 44 park areas, and offers approximately 2,800 recreation and seasonal programs. Facilities include an indoor ice arena, indoor tennis and racquetball complex, two recreation centers, a nature center, an 18-hole golf course, driving range, adventure golf, aquapark, beaches, boat launch ramp and yacht club on Lake Michigan.
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