Category: Landscape Architecture & Design

Olmsted & the Olmsted Firm

The Olmsteds and the Foundation of the National Park Service

Frederick Law Olmsted and his successors are well known for their development of city parks and park systems, but they also made lasting contributions to the National Park Service (NPS).
Olmsted & the Olmsted Firm

The Injustices of the South Shaped Olmsted’s Vision of Landscape Architecture

In the final decades of the 19th century, the new art of landscape architecture was born, in large part due to the efforts of Frederick Law Olmsted. This new profession offered “very specific responses” to the social, political, and environmental challenges of the time, argued Charles Waldheim, Hon. ASLA, the John E. Irving professor of landscape […]
Landscape Architecture & Design

Remembering the Adventure Playland on Washington Park’s Bynum Island

Sometimes when you know someone as an adult and find out something about their childhood, it makes perfect sense. That was how I felt when I learned that Arnold Randall, who is now General Superintendent at the Forest Preserves of Cook County, loved playing in Washington Park’s Adventure Playland when he was a boy. Arnold […]
Landscape Architecture & Design

A Vision for Truly Inclusive Public Spaces Rooted in Olmsted’s Core Values

Olmsted believed public parks would serve as a democratizing force, bringing many communities together to forge a new American society.
Landscape Architecture & Design

The Story of Olmsted and Vaux’s Perfected Plan

Frederick Law Olmsted is regularly recognized as the brilliant mind behind New York’s Central Park, but just across the East River lies another one of Olmsted’s greatest works in Brooklyn: Prospect Park.
Parks & Public Spaces

The Seven S’s of Olmsted Design

Frederick Law Olmsted created hundreds of works of landscape architecture. While they were all different, they embodied a set of design principles that Olmsted developed in his writing and “on the ground.”  What were Olmsted’s design concerns? And what should one look for when walking through an Olmsted design? Key principles shaped Olmsted’s designs and serve […]