As told to Kimberly Cunningham
San Diego native Joseph Y. Yamada has shaped many of this city’s most famous landmarks. In 1954, he joined forces with renowned landscape architect Harriet Wimmer. Together, as a woman and a Japanese-American man post-WWII, an unlikely duo for the era, they broke through barriers and became some of the most sought-after landscape architects in Southern California. Their designs represent some of the mid-century’s finest. Today, Wimmer Yamada and Caughey remains the longest-running landscape architecture firm in San Diego. As Yamada retires, partner and protégé Pat Caughey looks back at this master’s body of work.
Aeiral photo of UCSD’s Geisel Library
