LAURINBURG — St. Andrews University photographer and logistics director Rooney Coffman’s photographs of campus have been selected for a forthcoming publication in “The Cultural Landscape Foundation and Pioneers of American Landscape Design.”
Coffman’s photographs are of the buildings and grounds credited to the architect Lewis Clarke, the “original master planner” of St. Andrews campus. Clarke was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and retired in 2000.
Clarke, 91, is being honored with a designation of being a Pioneer with the prestigious Cultural Landscape Foundation. Clarke’s master planning work in North Carolina includes the Research Triangle Institute in Durham, the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro and the Fayetteville Street Pedestrian Mall in Raleigh. Clarke worked with Charlotte architects A.G. Odell Jr. and Associates to create the design for the 225-acre campus that required a total transformation of what had been agricultural and wooded acreage.
The campus contains a collection of Modernist buildings that used mid-twentieth-century building materials and technology that employed concrete, steel and glass. The campus plan garnered national attention. In January 1960, Progressive Architecture magazine awarded A. G. Odell Jr. and Associates an Education Division citation for the design.
In 2016, St. Andrews was added to the National Historic Register for its architecture and landscape.
The foundation asked Coffman to provide photos to affirm Clarke’s design to be shown in the award documents and included in the national publication.
Coffman, who just completed his 50th year at St. Andrews, provided six photographs to meet the specifications; three were selected with the response being “exquisite.” They include an aerial shot of the campus, Lake Ansley Moore and the Tower, Lake Ansley Moore and Belk.
In addition to the publication, the Cultural Landscape website https://tclf.org/lewis-james-clarke features the dominant landscape photo of Lake Ansley and the Tower.
Coffman’s photographs can be seen on the St. Andrews website at www.sa.edu.
St. Andrews’ history began in 1896 with the founding of Flora Macdonald College in Red Springs, merged with Webber International University in 2011 and became St. Andrews University.