Obituary of Edmond Charles Kagi
Edmond Charles Kagi passed on to see his Savior on October 6, 2022. Ed entered the world on December 13, 1931, in Syracuse, New York. The third of four children, Ed was born to Swiss immigrant parents, and his first language was Swiss - German.
In 1949, he graduated from Fayetteville High School. He then attended the State of New York College of Environmental Science & Forestry at Syracuse University, graduating in 1953 with a degree in Landscape Architecture.
On July 27, 1953, he was drafted into the US Army, which was the same day the armistice was signed to end the Korean conflict. Trained as a medic, he was assigned to the 253rd Medical Platoon in Germany where he acted as company clerk and had the responsibilities of providing basic medical services to local units. Before his honorable discharge in 1956, he found the time to visit friends and relatives in Switzerland during his 18 months of service.
In 1956, Ed enrolled in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and earned his Master’s in Landscape Architecture in 1958. Following graduation, he worked as an assistant planner in the Syracuse Office of Urban Renewal for one year before deciding to follow his love and future wife to California in 1958, where he was employed by the Contra Costa County Planning Department. One year later, he was hired at the Marin County Urban Planning Department. During this time, he proposed to and married his wife Alice in 1960. He and his wife then built a home in Mill Valley, CA and started a family.
Ed joined Sasaki-Walker Associates (SWA Group) of San Francisco in 1963 as a Landscape Architect and Urban Planner where he became partner and Principal in 1967. Ed steadily built business contact relationships and was spending much time in Texas with projects designing several new developments and master planned communities in the later 1970’s. In 1979, Ed moved his family to Houston, Texas to open a new SWA Group office, and he was instrumental in opening another branch office in Dallas, Texas. Both offices are still open today. During his tenure at SWA, Ed had the opportunity to represent the company not only domestically, but in locales such as Africa, China, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France, and several other European countries. He remained with the SWA Group for the rest of his career as a Landscape Architect and Urban Planner, retiring in 1997. Some of his best-known projects include: First Colony Master Planned Community, Sugar Land, Texas Green Meadows, Des Moines, Iowa Regency, Omaha, Nebraska Allen Center, Houston, Texas Burnett Park, Fort Worth, Texas New Towns in Saudi Arabia for Aramco; Dhahran, Ras Tanura, Abqaiq and Udailiyah
Ed strongly believed in the mentorship of developing landscape architects and contributed to teaching of architecture. He was a visiting critic at Louisiana State University in 1975, 1989-1991 and 1995, as well as at Harvard University in 1976. In 1989 and 1991, he was a lecturer at the School of Architecture at the University of Washington.
During a trip to Kenya in the early 1970’s, Ed met Samuel Mathau, a teenager and aspiring architect whom he sponsored to continue his schooling in the US. Ed and his wife helped and supported their new son through his studies. Sam became a successful architect and urban planner as well as a beloved member of the family, and he is now a professor of architecture and planning at a local university in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Ed was always active in his church and very strong in his Christian faith throughout his life. Ed regularly showed and shared God’s love and the gospel with many. He was an active member of Marin Covenant Church in Marin County, California, where he was instrumental in helping guide the development of a new church building. In Houston, he was a member of First Presbyterian Church (FPC) in Houston, attending the Special Topics bible study class since 1980. After his retirement, Ed dedicated time to Nehemiah Center and Operation ID, two outreach programs supported by FPC. The Nehemiah Center paired church mentors with at-risk youth, and Ed befriended and guided several students, some of whom stayed connected with him years after leaving the program. Operation ID, in which Ed participated for 18 years, assisted challenged community members in obtaining identification documents needed for employment. Ed often took his grandchildren with him to “help” at Operation ID during his time there.
Ed was preceded in death by his daughter, Karen. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Alice, his daughters, Loren (Jay) and Sonja (Tom), his son Sam (Debra) and three granddaughters and three grandsons.
A memorial service honoring Ed’s life will be held on November 30, 2022 at 10:30 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 5300 Main St. in Houston, Texas. The link to livestream the service is: https://fpchouston.org/ministries/adults/memorials-and-memorial-garden.