Eric Fulford Landscape Drawings Collection

This collection consists of 43 sheets of landscape and master plan drawings from the office of Eric Fulford, Indianapolis landscape architect. Fulford’s work covers the period of 1986-2010, but the collection includes copies of historical landscape drawings by other architects from 1923-1937.

The drawings are mostly landscape and master plans for residences and civic environments in Marion and Hamilton Counties. These include landscape plans for the Central Canal that depict sites and structures along the downtown Indianapolis canal. Planned communities in Hamilton County are seen in the drawings of the Village of West Clay and Fountain Square, an “exit 10 community.” There are master plans for the commercial and canal districts in Broad Ripple from 1998-2002.

The collection of drawings pertaining to the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s Westerley Estate contain copies of drawings from previous landscape architects that Fulford likely used as source material to define his work. Copies of the original landscape plan dating from 1923 by Jens Jensen which were sourced from the Jens Jensen Papers at the University of Michigan Library are present, as are Fritz Loonsten drawings from the 1930s. These copies are retained with the collection because of Fulford’s notes on the drawings, and due to the fact that they were source materials for his plans. Researchers are unable to copy them and must consult the originating institution for their use.

The most recent set of plans are from Fulford’s 2010 work on the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hospital and Eskenazi Health campus, formerly Wishard Hospital, that opened in December 2013. The architectural firm HOK is the principal firm for the large project, and their name is featured prominently on the drawings, while NINebark, Inc., Fulford’s company, is listed as a partnering firm.