Oscar Prager (1876–1960): a career across the Americas

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the work of Phoebe Cutler, which added a whole new chapter to the knowledge of the formative years of Prager’s life and his career in Oakland and Berkeley, key to understanding his later professional achievements in Chile. Pablo Sénz-Diez and Juan Patricio Cáceres provided valuable feedback on the final version of this article and facilitated its translation from Spanish.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Cutler, Phoebe, ‘Oscar Prager, Willis Polk, and the Empire Mine of Grass Valley’, Eden: Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society, 9/1 2006, p.2.

2. Prager’s Chilean identity card, now in Heriberto Schmutzer’s archive, Santiago, Chile, gives his name as ‘Oscar Albert Prager Wenck’, which includes his mother’s maiden name as customary in Spain and Latin America.

3. This essay is based on three research projects supported by Fondo de Ciencia y Tecnología (FONDECYT), Chile: IF1940601: Viveros, M, Lanata, L, Fuentes, I. & Vilches, E. 1994–1996, ‘Prager, su vigencia hoy’; IF1971224: Viveros, M, Lanata, L, Fuentes, I. & Vilches, E. 1998, ‘Prager en La Serena, Santiago y Osorno, 3 experiencias de proyecto urbano’; and IF1010067: Viveros, M, Lanata, L, Poblete & Arnello, 2002, ‘Prager y el espacio urbano en Concepción, Osorno y Los Andes’; part of this information appeared in Marta Viveros, Liliana Lanata, María Isabel Fuentes, and Eduardo Vilches, Oscar Prager: El arte del paisaje (Santiago de Chile: ARQ, 1997), which also included a valuable contribution by Phoebe Cutler on Prager’s work in Berkeley and Oakland.

4. Cutler, Phoebe, ‘Enigmatic Oscar Prager: the California years’, Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, 35/1, 2015, pp.1–20.

5. Ibid.

6. As attested by Sergio Larraín in an interview with the author (1966).

7. Information from Heriberto Schmutzer’s archive, Santiago, Chile.

8. Cutler, ‘Enigmatic Oscar Prager,’ p.2.

9. Ibid; cf. Cutler’s reference to Schneider, Camillo, ‘Eine Kulturfeier de deutschen Gartenbaus: Hundert Jahre Arbeit des Höheren Gärtnerlehranstalt zu Dahlem (Berlin)’, Gartenschönheit 5/8, 1924, pp.154–156.

10. Prager, Oscar, ‘El arte del paisaje’ in Anales de La Universidad de Chile, 1937.

11. Culbertson, Kurt. Landschaft und Gartenkunst: The German Influence in the Development of Landscape Architecture in America. Unpublished manuscript shared by author in 2005.

12. Cutler, ‘Oscar Prager, Willis Polk,’ p.5.

13. Ibid., pp.2–3.

14. Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley; see Cutler, ‘Enigmatic Oscar Prager,’ pp.3–6.

15. Oakland Tribune, November 1908, p.35.

16. Frank K. Mott, ‘Making City Beautiful’, Oakland Public Library.

17. Prager, Oscar, ‘A Landscape Architecture in Oakland, California’ in The Architect and Engineer, 1909, pp.45–50.

18. Hegemann, Werner, ‘Report on a city plan for the municipalities of Oakland and Berkley’, cited in Culbertson, ‘Landschaft und Gartenkunst,’ 1915, p.60.

19. Christiane Crasemann Collins, ‘Oscar Prager, jardines en el Paisaje’, Revista ARQ, 37, 1997, p.64.

20. Information from Heriberto Schmutzer’s archive, Santiago, Chile.

21. Information from Heriberto Schmutzer’s archive, Santiago, Chile (letters to Prager from Dolliver, McDonald, and Meyer).

22. For Albert Prager’s herbarium, see Alice Eastwood, ‘The Albert Prager Herbarium of the California Academy of Sciences,’ Leaflets of western botany, 6/11, 1952, pp.205–207.

23. As Prager later explained to his friends in Chile, he had enlisted in an Uhlan Regiment of the Saxon Army, then part of the German Imperial Army, which, however, was put under the Austro-Hungarian command to serve in the Russian campaign.

24. Edward White, Commissioner, United States Department of Labor, to Blandford; information provided by Phoebe Cutler.

25. Viveros, M. et al. 1997, p.18.

26. For Thays, see Sonia Berjman, Plazas y parques de Buenos Aires: La obra de los paisajistas franceses en Buenos Aires, 1860–1930 (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica-Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1998).

27. Thays’s original plan for Cerro San Cristóbal, entitled ‘Ciudad de Santiago de Chile, Parque San Cristóbal, proyecto de transformación e instalaciones diversas como plantaciones, etcetera’ (10 February 1920), is at the Instituto Histórico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.

28. Velasco, Benjamín, El Cerro San Cristóbal (Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Nascimento, 1927), p.124.

29. Mensaje del Gobernador de Tucumán Dr Miguel Campero del año 1925, in: Provincia de Tucumán. Gobierno del Dr. Miguel Campero. 15 May 1924–15 May 1928. Labor Administrativa. Tucumán, 1928; cited in: Olga Paterlini, San Miguel de Tucumán 1850–1930: La gestión de La ciudad, PhD Thesis, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, p. 109.

30. Viveros M. et al. ‘Prager: Un visionario en el arte del Paisaje’, ARQ 30, 1995. p.48.

31. Oskar Prager, ‘Ein Argentinischer Rosengarten’, Gartenschönheit, 9, 1928, pp.289–291.

32. Information from Heriberto Schmutzer’s archive, Santiago, Chile; Patterlini, op.cit.

33. Viveros, Marta. ‘Parque de la Viña Santa Rita’, Revista Flores y Jardines, 1984, pp.37–38.

34. Viveros, et al. op.cit. 1997, pp.37–38.

35. Interview with Sara Philippi de Fernández and other members of the Philippi-Izquierdo family.

36. Pérez de Arce, Mario, Josué Smith Solar: Un arquitecto chileno del 900 (Santiago de Chile: ARQ, 1993).

37. Libro de Citas N°11, p.337, de la Ilustre Municipalidad de Osorno. The entry states that Mayor Mathei sent his subordinate to Bariloche, a city in Argentina close to the border with Chile, to find ‘the renowned urban planner and landscape architect’ to work on the masterplan for Osorno; a later entry states that a ‘Mr Prager’ would arrive to Chile on November 23, and that the Carabineros de Chile (the National Police) would grant him a 30-day visa.

38. Hegemann, W, ‘Remodelación de la Plaza de Osorno-Chile, Arquitecto Oscar Prager’, Städtebau Baupolitik KNB, 5, 1930. For Brunner, see Höfer, Andreas, The influence of Karl Heinrich Brunner on 20th-century urbanism: Architectural works in Austria, PhD Thesis, Technische Universität Wien, 1993.

39. Anales de La Universidad de Concepción, acta 02, art. 4, pp.145–150: Enrique Molina underscores the need for a layout for a new campus and requests the government to hire the landscape architect Oscar Prager.

40. Prat Echaurren, Alfredo, ‘Los rascacielos y La Moneda’, Revista de Arquitectura, 8, 1994, p.46.

41. Brunner, Karl, ‘El sistema de áreas verdes de Santiago’, Revista Comuna y Hogar; ‘Six interviews with Karl Brunner in Chile’, Diario Ilustrado, 29 August 1934.

42. Viveros, M.; Lanata, L.; Piwonka, A. & Fuentes, M. ‘Experiencias cruzadas en la renovación del espacio urbano: Oscar Prager y Karl Brunner’, CA N°95 IV-1998, pp.25–28.

43. This diploma is part of Oscar Prager Archive, owned by the Schmutzer family.

44. Prager, Oscar, op.cit, 1937, pp.114–115.

45. Viveros, M. et.al. 1997, pp.132–141.

46. Andreas Höfer Archive, Vienna.

47. Archivo Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Chile. Dirección de Arquitectura. ‘Plan regional de transformación de La Serena y Coquimbo’, 1953; personal interview with former Chilean President Gabriel González Videla (1898–1980), 1975.

48. González Videla, Gabriel. Memorias (Santiago de Chile: Gabriela Mistral, 1975).

49. Montealegre, Alberto, Emilio Duhart arquitecto (Santiago de Chile: ARQ, 1994), pp.48–49.

50. Archivo Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Chile. Dirección de Arquitectura. ‘Plan regional de transformación de La Serena y Coquimbo’, 1953; personal interview with former Chilean President Gabriel González Videla (1898–1980), 1975.

51. Benjamín, ‘El Cerro San Cristóbal,’ p.124.

52. Prat Echaurren, Revista de Arquitectura, 8, 1994 (special issue dedicated to Karl Brunner).

53. Author’s interviews with Elfriede von Kiesling, conducted in the late 1960s and early 1970s; Prager designed a garden for her estate at El Arrayán, known as Parque Dedal de Oro, in 1939.

54. Viveros, M. et.al., op.cit. (1997), pp.6–9.

55. Mountainous landscapes with gradients that on average exceed 30% comprise at least half of the country’s territory, with the distance between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean ranging between 100 and 50 km (60–100 miles); as a consequence, what is considered flat land in the end of the fertile valleys in central Chile may still have gradients that range between 3% and 5%.

56. Viveros M, ‘Oscar Prager y la obra de un precursor’, CA19, Santiago de Chile, 1977, pp.5–7.

57. This information is provided by Mrs Wagner, the owner of the Flor de Lago estate in Villarrica.

58. Viveros, M. et.al., op.cit. (1997), pp. 73–123.