Hermann Haviland Field

Background

Hermann Haviland Field was born on April 13, 1910, in Zurich, Switzerland. He was the son of Herbert Haviland and Nina (Eschwege) Field.

Education

In 1933, Field received a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University. From 1932 to 1934, he attended Harvard Graduate School Design in Cambridge. In 1936, Hermann received a diploma in architecture from Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich.

Career

Professor Field's main career years were directed at large scale urban and institutional projects in Cleveland and Boston. After completing an architectural assignment in England in 1939, Hermann volunteered to become administrator in Krakow, Poland, for the British relief organization, the Czech Refugee Trust Fund, and after outbreak of war worked for the same organization in England. Back in the US he worked from 1940 in architectural offices in New York, and in 1947 for Western Reserve University in Cleveland until his abduction during a summer vacation abroad in 1949.

Increasingly concerned about the larger environmental impacts of professional activity during his eleven years (1961-1972). As Planning Director for the Tufts New England Medical Center's ambitious redevelopment in downtown Boston, he shifted to the Tufts Medford Campus in 1972 to conceptualize and direct a new graduate environmental planning & policy program there.

He served as director of this Program and as Professor of Political Science from 1972 to his retirement as Professor Emeritus in Environmental Planning in 1978. The graduate interdisciplinary approach cutting across four departments, focuses on a mix of on-campus teaching and community based fast track experience. Its graduates are sought by public agencies, the private consulting sector and community activists. In part, it has focused on providing supplementary preservice and inservice training as a base for persons in environmental policy and managerial positions, including capacity building for citizen volunteers on conservation and planning bodies and public interest groups. One of the byproducts has been the formation of the New England Environmental Network. In 1978 the Program became the permanent Department of Urban and Environmental Policy, drawing on selected students from across the country and from other continents. Since his retirement in 1978 he had been active in environmental issues at the local, regional and global levels.

Achievements

• Field was founder and chairperson of the urban and environmental policy program at Tufts University, where he became professor emeritus in 1978. Also a writer, Field wrote his first work, Angry Harvest, with Stanislaw Mierzenski while imprisoned by Communists in Poland; the work appeared in 1958. In 1990 he was given the Preservation Award from the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Angry Harvest 1958
  • Duck Lane 1961
  • Sustaining Tomorrow: A Strategy for World Conservation and Development 1984

Views

Field was intrested in research, administration and teaching in urban and community development, environmental planning and policy, as well as in urban health care facilities planning, urban design, transportation planning and policy, Growth management and zoning and Conflict resolution.

Interests

• Avocations: managing wildlife sanctuary, writing autobiographical manuscript.

Connections

On June 14, 1940, Field married Kate Margaret Thornycroft. They had three children: Hugh, Alan and Alison.

Father:

Herbert Haviland Field

Mother:

Nina (Eschwege) Field

Spouse:

Kate Margaret Thornycroft

Son:

Alan Field

Son:

Hugh Field

Son:

Alison Field