Shared Spaces

On July 20, 2021, hundreds of viewers tuned into Conversations with Olmsted: Creating Parks for the Ages. Hosted by the National Association for Olmsted Parks on behalf of Olmsted 200, the second installment in the series explored Olmsted’s belief that thoughtfully-designed public parks could bring communities together and provide residents and visitors with a host […]

In 1869, after a decade of toying with the idea of creating a park on Mount Royal, the City of Montréal began the process of acquiring the land to achieve its vision. The land purchase alone cost Montréal the equivalent of close to a full year’s budget. The City Council then went straight to Frederick […]

An historian and artist who lives in Washington, D.C., Jane Loeffler has written and taught widely on the history of modern architecture and landscape history. Here, she remembers her introduction to Olmsted.

Frederick Law Olmsted is the pioneer of landscape architecture in the U.S., the creator of green space masterpieces that dot the country. But perhaps the greatest testament to his genius is how very little one needs to know about him in order to appreciate his work. That has certainly been my experience. Back in 1987, […]

Despite Connecticut’s importance to the Olmsted, there is little contemporary understanding for the state’s place in the story. In response to this information gap, two Connecticut organizations collaborate to complete the state’s Olmsted research and inventory.

The Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy first broke the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the “Longest line of garden flamingos” on June 21st, 2018, in Bidwell Parkway. Since then, the flamingo, re-named FLOmingo in honor of Frederick Law Olmsted, has also become the unofficial mascot of the Conservancy.  In October 2019, the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ was taken back […]

Riverside’s defining characteristics include abundant greenery across its two square miles. This idyllic National Historic Landmark village is where I grew up climbing trees in the ‘90s.

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 […]