Frederick Law Olmsted
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 Frederick Law Olmstead
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| Born | April 26, 1822 |
| Died | August 28, 1903 |
| Occupation | Architect |
Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was a United States landscape architect, famous for designing many well-known urban parks, including Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City. Other project include the country's oldest coordinated system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York, the country's oldest state park, the Niagara Reservation in Niagara Falls, New York, Mount Royal Park in Montreal, the Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachusetts, Cherokee Park (and the entire parks and parkway system) in Louisville, Kentucky, as well as Jackson Park, Washington Park, Midway Plaisance in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition, Detroit's 982 acre Belle Isle park, the landscape surrounding the United States Capitol building, and George Washington Vanderbilt II's Biltmore Estate in North Carolina.
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[edit] Life and career
Born in Hartford, Connecticut to a wealthy dry-goods merchant and the son of a farmer, Olmsted was fascinated with nature from his youth. After attending Phillips Academy, he studied agricultural science and engineering at Yale. After sailing to China in 1843 for a year, he worked on his farm in Connecticut, then moved to New York City and ran a 130-acre (0.5 km²) experimental scientific farm on Staten Island that his father acquired for him in January 1848. This farm, named "The Woods of Arden" by previous owner, Erastus Wiman, Olmsted renamed to Tosomock Farm.
Olmsted also had a significant career in journalism. In 1850 he traveled to England to visit public gardens, where he was greatly impressed by Joseph Paxton's Birkenhead Park, and subsequently published Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England in 1852. Interested in the slave economy, he was commissioned by the New York Daily Times (now the New York Times) to embark on an extensive research journey through the American South and Texas from 1852 to 1857. Olmsted took the view that the practice of slavery was not only morally odious, but expensive and economically inefficient. His dispatches were collected into multiple volumes which remain vivid, first-person social documents of the pre-war South. The last of these, "Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom" (1861), published during the first six months of the American Civil War, helped inform and galvanize antislavery sentiment in New England. Olmsted also cofounded the magazine The Nation in 1865. He married his brother's widow Mary in 1859 and adopted her three sons.
Olmsted's friend and mentor, Andrew Jackson Downing, the charismatic landscape architect from Newburgh, New York first proposed the development of New York's Central Park as publisher of The Horticulturist magazine. It was Downing who introduced Olmsted to the English-born architect Calvert Vaux, whom Downing had personally brought back from England as his architect-collaborator. After Downing died a hero's death in a steamboat explosion on the Hudson River in July 1852, in his honor Olmsted and Vaux entered the Central Park design competition together—and won (1858). On his return from the South, Olmsted began executing the plan almost immediately. Olmsted and Vaux continued their informal partnership to design Prospect Park in Brooklyn from 1865 to 1873[1], and other projects. Vaux remained in the shadow of Olmsted's grand public personality and social connections.
The design of Central Park embodies Olmsted's social consciousness and commitment to egalitarian ideals. Influenced by Downing and by his own observations regarding social class in England, China and the American South, Olmsted believed that the common green space must always be equally accessible to all citizens. This principle is now so fundamental to the idea of a "public park" as to seem self-evident, but it was not so then. Olmsted's tenure as park commissioner was one long struggle to preserve that idea.
After completing Central Park, Olmsted served as Executive Secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a precursor to the Red Cross in Washington D.C. which tended to the wounded during the Civil War. In 1863 he became the manager of the Mariposa mining estate in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. In 1865 Vaux and Olmsted formed Olmsted, Vaux and Company. When Olmsted returned to New York, he and Vaux designed Prospect Park, Chicago's Riverside subdivision, Buffalo, New York's park system, Milwaukee, Wisconsin's grand necklace of parks, and the Niagara Reservation at Niagara Falls.
Olmsted not only created city parks in many cities around the country, he also conceived of entire systems of parks and interconnecting parkways which connected certain cities to green spaces. Two of the best examples of the scale on which Olmsted worked are one of the largest pieces of his work, the park system designed for Buffalo, New York, and the system he designed for Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
- For a list of Olmsted designed parks in Buffalo, New York, please see Buffalo, New York parks system.
Olmsted was a frequent collaborator with Henry Hobson Richardson for whom he devised the landscaping schemes for half a dozen projects, including Richardson's commission for the Buffalo State Asylum.
In 1883 Olmsted established what is considered to be the first full-time landscape architecture firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. He called the home and office compound Fairsted, which today is the recently-restored Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site. From there Olmsted designed Boston's Emerald Necklace, the campus of Stanford University and the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago among many other projects. In 1895, senility forced him to retire. He moved to Belmont, Massachusetts and took up residence at McLean Hospital, which he had landscaped several years before, where he remained until his death in 1903, and burial in the Old North Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut. After Olmsted's death, his sons John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. continued the work of their firm, doing business as the Olmsted Brothers. The firm lasted until 1950.
Olmsted was one of the six founding members of the Union League Club of New York.
A quotation from Olmsted's friend and colleague architect Daniel Burnham could well serve as his epitaph. Referring to Olmsted in March, 1893, Burnham said, "An artist, he paints with lakes and wooded slopes; with lawns and banks and forest covered hills; with mountain sides and ocean views." (quoted from Larson's The Devil in the White City)
[edit] Academic campuses designed by Olmsted and sons
Between 1857 and 1950, Olmsted and his successors designed 355 school and college campuses. Some of the most famous are listed here.
- American University Main Campus, Washington, DC
- Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania (1895-1927)
- Colgate University, Hamilton, New York
- Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (1867-73)
- Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C. (1866)
- Groton School, Groton, Massachusetts
- Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania
- Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1925-31)
- Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania (1925-32)
- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland (1903-19)
- Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey (1883-1901)
- Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York
- Middlesex School, Concord, Massachusetts (1901)
- Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
- Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts
- Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (1891-1965)
- Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts (1891-1909)
- Stanford University, Palo Alto, California (1886-1914)
- Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut (1872-94)
- University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California (1865)
- University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (1901-10)
- University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida (1925)
- University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
- University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana (1929-32)
- University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island (1894-1903)
- University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1902-20)
- Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York (1896-1932)
- Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri (1865-99)
- Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts
- Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts (1902-12)
- Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (1874-81)
[edit] Other notable Olmsted commissions
- Audubon Park, New Orleans, Louisiana
- Arnold Arboretum, Boston, Massachusetts
- Back Bay Fens, Arborway and Riverway, Boston, Massachusetts
- Beardsley Park, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1884
- Belle Isle, Detroit, Michigan, landscaped in the 1880s
- Biltmore Estate grounds, Asheville, North Carolina
- Branch Brook Park, Newark, New Jersey, 1900 redesign
- Buffalo, New York parks system
- Buttonwood Park, New Bedford, Massachusetts
- Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, 1853 (opened in 1856)
- Cherokee Park, Louisville, Kentucky
- Civic Center Park, Denver, Colorado
- Cushing Island, Maine
- Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan
- Fairmount Park, Riverside, California
- Franklin Park, Boston, Massachusetts
- Genesee Valley Park, Rochester, New York
- Glen Magna Farms, Danvers, Massachusetts
- Highland Park, Rochester, New York
- Humboldt Park, Chicago, IL
- The Institute of Living, Hartford, Connecticut, 1860s
- Jackson Park, originally South Park, Chicago, Illinois
- Kykuit, Gardens, Rockefeller family estate, Westchester, New York, from 1897
- Lake Park, River Park (now Riverside Park) and West Park (now Washington Park), Milwaukee, Wisconsin [1]
- Manor Park, Larchmont, New York
- Maplewood Park, Rochester, New York
- Montebello Park, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada [2]
- Morningside Park, Manhattan, New York City
- Mount Royal Park, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, inaugurated in 1876
- Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, California, dedicated in 1865
- New York State Hospital for the Insane, Buffalo, New York
- Nay Aug Park, Scranton, Pennsylvania
- Niagara Reservation (now Niagara Falls State Park), Niagara Falls, New York, dedicated in 1885
- North Park, Fall River, Massachusetts (1901) [3]
- Piedmont Park, Atlanta, Georgia
- Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York City, finished 1868
- Public Pleasure Grounds, San Francisco, California
- Riverside Park, Manhattan, New York City
- Ruggles Park, Fall River, Massachusetts
- Seaside Park, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1860s
- South Park, (now Kennedy Park), Fall River, Massachusetts
- The Rockery, Easton, Massachusetts
- United States Capitol grounds, Washington D.C.
- Utah State Capitol grounds masterplan, Salt Lake City, Utah
- Westmount Park, Westmount, Quebec
- World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois, 1893
- World's End, formerly the John Brewer Estate, Hingham, Massachusetts, 1889
[edit] References
- Beveridge, Charles E; Paul Rocheleau (October 1998). Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape. New York, New York: Universe Publishing. ISBN 0-7893-0228-4.
- (2003) Guide to Biltmore Estates. Asheville, North Carolina: The Biltmore Company.
- Hall, Lee (1995). Olmsted’s America: An "Unpractical" Man and His Vision of Civilization. Boston, MA: Bullfinch Press.
- Olmsted, Frederick Law (1856). A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States; With Remarks on Their Economy.
- Rybczynski, Witold (June 1999). A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and North America in the Nineteenth Century. New York, New York: Scribner. ISBN 0-684-82463-9.
- ^ Lancaster, Clay (1972). Handbook of Prospect Park. Long Island University Press, 51 - 66. ISBN 0-913252-06-9.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- National Association of Olmsted Parks Bibliography
- Celebration of the life and work of Olmsted
- Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Mass.
- The Olmsted Research Guide Online (ORGO)
- Journey through Texas, or, a Saddle Trip on the Southwestern Frontier, by Frederick Law Olmsted, 1857. Hosted by the Portal to Texas History.
- H.H. Richardson State Hospital — Grounds by F.L. Olmsted
- Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy
- Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy
- Olmsted and Vaux in Buffalo, New York
- Olmsted biography from Gardens Guide
- Olmsted in Buffalo, New York
- Seattle, Washington's extensive Olmsted park system, designed by his firm.
- Frederick Law Olmsted, Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report (1865)
- Frederick Law Olmsted Day Almost Official in Connecticut
- Bridgeport Parks Department History of Seaside Park
- National Register of Historic Places, Fairfield County, CT p. 1 (Includes reference to Beardsley Park)
- National Register of Historic Places, Fairfield County, CT p. 5 (Includes reference to Seaside Park)
- Mr. Lincoln and New York: Frederick Law Olmsted
- F.L. Olmsted Schools 56 and 64 in Buffalo, New York
- Olmsted Archives
