Shared Spaces

Parks are spaces for reflection, offering solace from the churn of the city and the demands of everyday life. They are places to let air into lungs, to release energy, and to stretch your arms wide. The physical benefits of parks are clear, but as COVID-19 has demonstrated, the mental benefits from public outdoor spaces […]

The first of its kind in the United States, the Buffalo, New York system of interconnected parks and parkways is one of the largest Olmsted bodies of work comprised of 24 park and parkway features.

Land adjoining Frederick Law Olmsted’s farmhouse on Staten Island, which was instrumental in shaping his design principles, is in danger of being sold to developers. Despite recent designations to the national and New York state historic registries of the Farmhouse, the state has yet to release the funds it set aside to purchase 1.2 acres […]

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 […]

For more than a century, authors have grappled with how to tell the story. Frederick Law Olmsted was, in turn, a “scientific” farmer, merchant seaman, surveyor, literary thinker, roving reporter, publisher, anti-slavery advocate, conservationist, superintendent with his own “navy,” and, most famously, shaper of America’s urban landscape. We offer readers some top picks for reading […]

Charmed by the natural beauty of Asheville, North Carolina, George Washington Vanderbilt III amassed 125,000 acres in the late 1880s on which to build his “little mountain escape.” Architect Richard Morris Hunt designed Biltmore House in the Châteauesque style modeled after the Renaissance châteaux of Blois, Chenonceau, and Chambord and England’s Waddesdon Manor. In what […]

Today, Olmsted 200 launched its year-long nationwide campaign to celebrate the upcoming bicentennial of Frederick Law Olmsted with a Watch Party and Panel Discussion for Olmsted and America’s Urban Parks, a documentary narrated by actress Kerry Washington. Thousands of parks and landscape projects designed and inspired by FLO and the Olmsted firm can still be […]

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

We can thank the Olmsteds for creating beautiful parks around the country.  We can’t take their parks for granted, since  they require regular care and maintenance.   The National Park Service (NPS) reports that invasive plants are one of the biggest challenges facing the national parks. Those are non-native plants that  pose a threat to the […]