Peter Schaudt was known for his work in Chicago and integrating landscaping with buildings.Landscape architect best known for his work on the Chicago’s Soldier Field, Peter Schaudt, died Sunday at the age of 56 of a heart attack at his Villa Park home.
Born in La Grange, Illinois, Schaudt grew up in Villa Park and left his mark on many Chicago landscapes, including a series of outdoor spaces near Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall, a rooftop garden at the Gary Comer Youth Center, the 1996 renovation of Chicago’s Daley Plaza, and landscaping for the 2005 Hyatt Center.
“He was very proud of all he had accomplished in the civic realm and the difference it made in the everyday life of people who lived and worked in the city,” Douglas Hoerr, Schaudt’s firm partner told the Chicago Tribune.
Schaudt earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1982, and in 1984, a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Harvard University.
He initially used his “stadium in a park” design around the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the 1990s.
In 2003, he worked on the renovation of Soldier Field, replacing parking lots with 17 acres of parkland, including a sledding hill with a skyline view.
He also recently designed a new plaza outside Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which features 13 birch trees to match the number of the Packer’s championships.
His Chicago firm, Hoerr Schaudt, which he established in 2008 with Douglas Hoerr, won a 2007 competition that resulted in the construction of a large, occupied green roof atop the podium buildings of Toronto’s City Hall.
