A.E. Bye, 82, noted landscape architect

Arthur Edwin Bye Jr. of Ridgefield, an internationally known landscape architect, died Sunday, Nov. 25, in Doylestown, Pa., after a short illness. He was 82.
Born Aug. 25, 1919 in Arnhem, Holland, to Arthur Edwin Bye Sr. of Holicong, Pa., and Maria Catarina Heldring of Amsterdam, Holland, he spent his early years at the Byecroft Farm in Bucks County, Pa.
He graduated from the School of Landscape Architecture at Pennsylvania State University and taught landscape architecture at Cooper Union in New York City for 40 years. Mr. Bye also had long tenures at Columbia University, where he taught over 22 years, and the University of Pennsylvania. He lectured widely at universities throughout the United States and England.
Known as a poetic minimalist in the landscaping world, he used indigenous materials native to the areas in which he worked. Many times when projects were completed, it would be difficult to see what had been done by nature and what had been done by man.
An early admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright and organic architecture, Mr. Bye was later commissioned to landscape two Wright houses.
Other well-known works are the landscaping of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., the George Soros residence in Southampton, N.Y., and Gainesway Farm in Lexington, Ky., a project that took eight and a half years.
“The client there understood what was aesthetically good and he let me be free,” Mr. Bye said of the Gainesway project. “To be creative, you have to be left alone. You can’t go collaborating with people — you don’t have Leonardo collaborating with Van Gogh!”
He wrote two books: Art into Landscape, Landscape into Art in 1981 and Moods in the Landscape in 1999. Also the Penn State Press published a book of essays on Mr. Bye’s work written by various authors entitled Abstracting the Landscape, the Artistry of Landscape Architect A.E. Bye in 1991.
In 1993 A.E. Bye received the Gold Medal from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon one in his field.
A Ridgefielder since 1958, Mr. Bye had long had an office in Greenwich from which he did projects in every state east of the Mississippi River. But he loved the Northeast. “New England is my favorite place,” he said. “In this part of the world you have more richness of landscape. If you go out to Indiana and Ohio, they don’t have these beautiful outcroppings or a lot of trees. There’s a lot of character to this landscape.”
Mr. Bye is survived by a brother, artist Ranulph correct Bye of Mechanicsville, Pa., and a sister, local historian Margaret Bye Richie of Doylestown, Pa., as well as 10 nieces and nephews.
A celebration of his life will be held at Buckingham Friends Meeting at Routes 202 and 263, in Lahaska, Pa., on Sunday, Dec. 2, at 1:30 p.m.
Donations may be made to The Arthur E. Bye Lectureship in Landscape Architecture, Penn State University, 7 Old Main, University Park, PA 16802.