Landscape Lens'

The Landscape Institute (LI) is a UK based professional body for the landscape profession. Its membership includes landscape architects, urban designers, landscape planners, landscape scientists and landscape managers. The LI also has a category for academic members. Founded in 1929-30 as the Institute of Landscape Architects (ILA), it was granted a royal charter in 1997. In the words of its longest serving president, Geoffrey Jellicoe, “It is only in the present century that the collective landscape has emerged as a social necessity. We are promoting a landscape art on a scale never conceived of in history.” The LI seeks to promote landscape architecture and to regulate the landscape profession with a code of conduct that members must abide by. The LI had ‘over 900’ members at its fortieth birthday (in 1969) and by 1978 had over 1,500 members. In 2019 the total membership of the LI was 5,613. In 2025 this increased to over 6,000. The Landscape Institute royal charter was granted in 1997 and revised in 2008 and 2016. Its objects and purposes are specified as follows (in Clause 5. (1): ‘The objects and purposes for which the Institute is hereby constituted are to protect, conserve and enhance the natural and built environment for the benefit of the public by promoting the arts and sciences of Landscape Architecture (as such expression is hereinafter defined) and its several applications and for that purpose to foster and encourage the dissemination of knowledge relating to Landscape Architecture and the promotion of research and education therein, and in particular to establish, uphold and advance the standards of education, qualification, competence and conduct of those who practice Landscape Architecture as a profession, and to determine standards and criteria for education, training and experience.’ The Landscape Institute publishes the journal Landscape (formerly Landscape Design), and is a member of the International Federation of Landscape Architects.