Nolen, John, 1869-1937

John Nolen (June 14, 1869 – February 18, 1937) was an American landscape architect, planning consultant, founding member of the American City Planning Institute and a writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nolen was orphaned as a child and placed in Girard College. After he graduated first in his class in 1884, he worked as a grocery clerk and secretary to the Girard Estate Trust Fund before enrolling in the Wharton School of Finance and Economics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1891. Nolen earned a Ph.B. in 1893, and for the next ten years worked as secretary of the American Society for the Extension of University Teaching. He married Barbara Schatte in 1896.

In 1903 Nolen sold his house and used the money to enroll in the newly established Harvard School of Landscape Architecture, under the famed instructors Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., Arthur Shurtleff, and B.M. Watson. He received an A.M. in 1905 from Harvard.

He established an office in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he and his associates branched out into city planning, as well as landscape architecture. Nolen was a frequent lecturer on city and town planning, and was active in many professional organizations, including the American City Planning Institute (now American Institute of Planners), American Civic Association (now Urban America), American Society of Landscape Architects, American Society of Planning Officials, International Garden Cities and Town-Planning Federation, National Conference on City Planning (now Urban America), and the Town Planning Institute of England.

Nolen completed a number of projects in Wisconsin as well as earlier efforts in Virginia, Georgia, and particularly, San Diego, California. His prestige as an innovative urban planner was firmly established. By 1919, Nolen had written two books, edited two others, and published dozens of articles. In 1927, he was elected president of the National Conference on City Planning. Nolen was the official landscape architect to such municipalities as Kingsport Tennessee; Madison, Wisconsin; Asheville, North Carolina; Montclair, New Jersey; Reading, Pennsylvania; Roanoke, Virginia; San Diego, California; New London, Connecticut; Bristol, Connecticut; Savannah, Georgia; and Schenectady, New York.