Calendar

Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. is considered the father of American Landscape Architecture.  Olmsted was responsible for a large number of park designs, both public and private, alone and in collaboration with other architects, most notably Calvert Vaux. His most prolific works include Manhattan's Central Park, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Boston’s Emerald Necklace, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, Downing Park of Newburgh, NY, and Buffalo’s Park System.

After early careers as a sailor, journalist, and anti-slavery activist, Olmsted turned his attention to landscape architecture in the 1850s after entering and winning a design competition for New York’s Central Park with Calvert Vaux—a partnership that would last for another fifteen years.  The idea for a New York City Park was first proposed by Andrew Jackson Downing, a notable American landscape designer, advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine (1846-52).  In 1850 Downing traveled to Europe where he met English Architect Calvert Vaux.  He made Vaux his partner and for two years they worked in the United States on projects such as the White House grounds and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.  It was during these years that Downing introduced Olmsted and Vaux to each other, both having Downing as a mutual acquaintance and friend.  Olmsted even wrote a few articles for Downing’s magazine, The Horticulturalist.  On July 28^th 1852 Downing passed away after a steamboat accident just South of Yonkers, NY.  Olmsted and Vaux took over Downing’s architectural practice and entered their Greensward design in the competition for New York City’s Central Park.  They were announced as the winners in 1858.  Work began almost immediately and thus began fifteen years of professional collaboration. 

On August 12^th, 1868 after the successful completion of Central Park by Olmsted and Vaux, William Dorsheimer, a prominent Buffalo, NY attorney reached out to Olmsted for advice on a similar grand park design for Buffalo.  Dorsheimer, at the time a future congressman, is best remembered in addition to hiring Olmsted, for hiring American Architect H. H. Richardson to design a house for him on Delaware Avenue. It still stands today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Dorsheimer also helped Richardson to win the commission to design the New York State Asylum in Buffalo (now known as the Richardson Olmsted Complex).  Olmsted visited Buffalo on August 16^th shortly after Dorsheimer contacted him and spent the day touring the city and the open farmland to the North.  Olmsted had been in Buffalo during the Civil War and had admired Joseph Ellicott’s city plan for its departure from a strict grid system and its sensitivity to the topography of the area.  He was famously quoted as saying that Buffalo is the “best planned city…in the United States, if not the world”.  In a letter written to Dorsheimer on October 1^st 1868, he recommended not just one park, but a comprehensive public park system connected by a system of parkways.  This vision was backed by a committee of five prominent Buffalonians, including Dorsheimer, Pascal P. Pratt, Sherman S. Jewett, Richard Flach, and Joseph Warren, and was quickly supported by Buffalo’s mayor, William F. Rogers. In 1870, the Olmsted firm was retained to design the new park system, and in 1876 The Plan of the Buffalo Park System was displayed at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876.  Afterwards, Olmsted donated the displayed plan to the City of Buffalo.

The Olmsted and Vaux 1870 Plan for the Buffalo Parks System was a revolutionary development in the practice of Landscape Architecture in its integration of landscape design and urban planning.  The plan included three major parks: The Park (now Delaware Park), The Front (now Front Park), and The Parade (later called Humboldt Park and now Martin Luther King, Jr. Park). The plan included interconnecting Parkways, or “linear parks” that Olmsted designed to connect the parks to each other and to the city overall.  The result was an urban landscape embroidered with “green ribbons” that wove serene natural settings into a bustling industrial center.  These connections made visible the integrity of the system as a whole, and served the broader function of linking disparate parts of the city.  

In the 1880’s Olmsted was invited back to design the extension of the parks system to the south.  He recommended a large waterfront park on the shores of Lake Erie accessible by both carriage roads and a water canal from downtown.  Olmsted was relegated to design on a series of inland sites: Heacock Place, Cazenovia Park and South Park design as a botanical garden and arboretum, the largest of which he designed in his career.  Near the end of the 19^th century after Olmsted’s retirement the Olmsted firm, headed by his two sons, designed a plan for Riverside Park in Blackrock.  The unique qualities of the Buffalo Olmsted Park System was nationally and internationally recognized beginning with the selection of Buffalo as the location of the Pan American Exposition in 1901.  The fact that the Buffalo system was actually constructed as planned and that communication with Olmsted and his associates was continuous for over 30 years, makes the Buffalo system unique and significant as a Buffalo resource.

The term “Olmstedian Landscape” is often used to describe a certain style of open space, sometimes accurately but often times simplistically to describe lawn with trees.  The Olmsted design principles have been broken down into The Seven S’s by notable Olmsted scholar Charles Beveridge.  

• Scenery: Designs that give a sense of movement through a series of spaces large and small that constantly open up to new views.  This is achieved by indefinite boundaries and the play of light and shadow. 
• Suitability: Respect for the local site and its natural scenery, vegetation, and topography, as shown within the Buffalo Park System. 
• Style: The use of different techniques with specific purposes: “pastoral” for soothing, “picturesque” for a sense of richness and bounteousness of nature and for a sense of mystery. 
• Subordination: The relegation of all elements, features and objects to the overall design.  This refers to how Olmsted wanted the landscape to be the most important feature, not the buildings or other design elements within the parks. 
• Separation: Division of areas designed in different styles; separation of movement to ensure safety; separation of conflicting or incompatible issues.  One example would be that Olmsted separated active and passive recreation. 
• Sanitation:  Sites were designed for adequate drainage and engineering, not just surface arrangement; Olmsted’s designs are meant to promote physical and mental health of users.

• Service: Olmsted’s design serves direct social and psychological needs.
  • Source: Beveridge, Charles. (1986) Toward a Definition of Olmstedian Principles of Design.  National Association for Olmsted Parks

Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. died in 1903, and he passed on to his sons John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. the first Landscape Architecture Firm in the United States.  The firm employed 60 people in the 1930’s at its peak, and the two brothers were among the original founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects(ASLA), and played an influencial role in creating the National Parks Service. 

Frederick Law Olmsted is not only considered the father of modern landscape architecture, but he also named the profession.  Olmsted was the first to champion the need for green space and outdoor activity in the country’s rapidly industrializing cities.  Olmsted has designed parks, estates and neighborhoods throughout the United States and Canada.  Today, Buffalo’s parks are just as essential to the cities well being as they were over 100 years ago when Olmsted designed them.  In particular, research has shown that parks make a vital contribution to the health, environment and wealth of a city.