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FISCHER & ASSOCIATES |
MONTANA | |
 
A week ago it was the mountains I thought the most wonderful, and today it's the plains, I guess it's the feeling of bigness in both that carries me away. Georgia O'Keefe
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Montana
is a powerful place. A living laboratory for what it means to
be outdoors, this is a state where landscape is undeniable: unspeakably
vast plains of waving yellow grasses, the permanent record of ancient
earthly upheavals left as towering granite peaks, nothing but blue skies
stretching from eastern to western horizon without interruption. As
history goes, Lewis and Clark's footprints are barely washed away,
as they forged the defining trail through this nation, finding the way
for the settlers of today to make their lives in the West. The spirit
of discovery is still alive here, in Montana, and is part of why the
designers at Fischer & Associates find such satisfaction in working
in this place. They are working with undiscovered country, a blank canvas
of land and human expectation. They are shaping meaningful people places
from the land where human populations are struggling to grow, and preserving
and protecting the landscapes where nature doesn't need any help.
For a landscape architect, this can be a place of immeasurable inspiration
and uncommon opportunity. A place to live in the landscape, to
be nurtured by its resources, to be humbled by the power of its presence. Fischer & Associates' office is located in Billings, a growing urban place of 100,000 people. It is an ideal place for a firm of such diverse interests and talents. As the largest city in Montana and the state's major transportation and shipping hub, Billings has had to deal with a multitude of problems relating to urban growth. Fischer & Associates has been involved at every level in guiding and planning this growth with a wide variety of projects in the city. At the same time, Billings' "backyard" is a wonderland of natural resource: from blue ribbon trout streams to snow-capped peaks to Yellowstone National Park, just a few hours away. It is this diversity of landscape and opportunity, history and culture, that makes it easy to see why Fischer & Associates chooses Billings, Montana for its home. |
