‘To make a town’: landscape architecture, land, and settlement in the Panama Canal Zone, 1913–1915

Nicolay Duque-Robayo

Planning Perspectives, 2025, vol. 40, issue 5, 1285-1308

Abstract: With construction of the Panama Canal underway, by 1912 the Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) identified a site for the development of a US administrative centre near its Pacific entrance. After the dismissal of architect Austin W. Lord for his failure to ‘make a town that will be a credit to the United States', landscape architect William L. Phillips joined the ICC to plan permanent settlements along the US controlled Panama Canal Zone (PCZ). Phillips oversaw the planning efforts and construction for several towns - among them the ICC's headquarters in the town of Balboa. His appointment in the PCZ prompts questions regarding the role of landscape architecture in the imperial project of the Panama Canal. In turning to the planning history of Balboa, this article highlights the role of landscape architecture as a design profession complicit in the formation of an informal US empire at the beginning of the twentieth century. Phillips’ work foregrounds the role of landscape architecture in this case study in framing land as site for the development of US property outside the continuous nation-state through the reconciliation of aesthetics and technical expertise.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2025.2520615

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