Frederick Lang; Landscape Architect and Activist

Frederick M. Lang, landscape architect and environmental activist who advocated use and conservation of Mediterranean plants adaptable to the similar Southern California climate, has died. He was 81.

Lang, who operated his business out of his home in Laguna Beach, died May 20 at South Coast Medical Center in South Laguna of heart failure.

The Laguna Beach Guild gave him its lifetime achievement award in 1993, and his grateful city honored him by designating Frederick M. Lang Park in 1991.

Among Lang’s many projects over more than half a century were the grounds at UC Irvine, the Talac Knoll Water Gardens in the Los Angeles County Arboretum and plantings for Dana Point Harbor. In addition to speaking out politically and serving on a variety of land planning groups, Lang purchased areas of land with some friends to preserve native species of chaparral.

He was active in the California Planning and Conservation League and chaired the Citizens Committee for Small Wilderness Preservation. He also served on the board of the Laguna Greenbelt Commission and the South Laguna Civic Assn.

In addition to his own projects, Lang taught courses in landscape architecture at UC Irvine and Cal Poly Pomona.

“We’re interested in maintaining not a crippled vegetation, but the vegetation as it developed,” he once explained on a walking tour through South Laguna sage, chamise and laurel sumac.

Lang grew up in Meiningen, Germany, of Jewish background. In 1934, when he was 19, far-sighted relatives paid his fare to the United States. He studied commercial drawing at the Chicago Art Institute and then made his way to California, hoping to work in journalism or the theater.

He worked part time for the Hollywood Citizen News and the San Diego Evening Tribune. Hitchhiking back and forth, he “was dumped in Laguna” and stayed.

The German immigrant was so self-conscious about his first landscaping job in 1938 that he worked at night to avoid being seen. But gradually his intrigue with the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino and the passion of his father-in-law for subtropical fruit persuaded him to give up writing and make landscape architecture his lifework.

Lang was also active in the Laguna Playhouse and the Laguna Beach Chamber Music Society.

He is survived by his wife, Bonnie; three daughters, Una Marie Pierce, Katie Lang Slattery and Karen Lang; a brother, Herman; sister, Edith Collett; four grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday at Lang Park in South Laguna.