A Boy Loves Nature
Frederick Law Olmsted loved nature as a young child. Born April 26, 1822, near Hartford, Connecticut, he was not a good student but much of what he learned, he learned from nature and his wanderings through the countryside. He dedicated a lifetime to designing with nature which led him to become the father of American Landscape Architecture.
His 200th birthday is being celebrated nationally this year for his work in parks and various designs. His legacy was carried on by his sons for many decades as Olmsted Brothers until 1961. It concluded as Olmsted Associates, Inc. in 1979 when the last two principals retired from the firm.

Travels
Olmsted was a part-time student at Yale, and a experimental farmer, he turned to journalism in the 1850s. Writing brought him fame, but his travels in England introduced him to the recently opened Birkenhead Park, 1847, designed by Joseph Paxton and Edward Kemp near Liverpool, England. After visiting England, he accepted a job with the New York Daily-Times, a forerunner of the present-day New York Times. Olmsted's assignment was to travel through the South and report on the agricultural practices of the day. The Cotton Kingdom was a travelog of his wanderings from Virginia through Georgia to Louisiana and eventually Texas. To this day, this book remains one of the most insightful books on life in the antebellum.

 

A Park is Born
Olmsted was hired as Superintendent of the proposed new Central Park in New York City in 1857 which became the first public park in the United States. Since the Park Board did not have a design, but only the land, they advertised for a competition for the design. Vaux, remembering Olmsted from his visit to Downing's office, contacted him and proposed submitting a joint design in a competition. Their "Greensward Plan" was then chosen as the winning design and opened to the public in 1859. The first park planning firm in the United States, Olmsted & Vaux, was then launched in 1862 as they were appointed landscape architects for the development of the new Central Park.

His Principles
Several scholars have attempted to define Olmsted's vision for open space design. His philosophy of design can be summed up as articulated open spaces with an enhanced sense of place in each of his designs by defining space with trees, bodies of water, meadows of flowers with topographic changes providing indefinite boundaries and constant openings to new views. He took advantage of unique site features and designed landscapes that maintain themselves while using the unique characteristics of each site to elevate their mental awareness and improve their physical and social wellbeing.

Greatest Projects
From this point on the profession of Landscape Architecture was assured and park planning, and design became common across the nation. Some of Olmsted's greatest designs include Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Boston's Emerald Necklace of Parks, Jackson Park in Chicago which was Olmsted's contribution to the 1893 "Great White City of the World's Columbian Exposition."

His Legacy
Olmsted's work and firm inspired the profession, city planning, and the first undergraduate degree program in landscape architecture at Michigan State University. The first graduate program in landscape architecture began at Harvard in 1900 and was highly influenced by Frederick Jr. He was a professor and one of the founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1899.
This year is a national celebration of Olmsted's life and work. More information can be found at:

www.olmsted200.org