Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape

By Charles Beveridge

Book Overview

A man of passionate vision and drive, Frederick Law Olmsted defined and named the profession of landscape architecture and designed America's most beloved parks and landscapes of the past century--New York's Central Park, Brooklyn's Prospect Park, the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Biltmore Estate, and many others. During a remarkable forty-year career that began in the mid-1800s, Olmsted created the first park systems, urban greenways, and planned surburban residential communities in this country. He was a pivotal figure in the movement to create and preserve natural parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Niagra Falls. He also contrbuted to the design of many academic campuses, including Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Today there is a resurgence of interest in Olmsted's work and legacy in both the United States and Europe. This timely volume presents the breadth of Olmsted's work in beautiful color photographs by Paul Rocheleau and illuminates Olmsted's role as an indefatigable administrator and social reformer. Olmstead's career reflected a deep concern for fostering community and using the restorative effects of natural scenery to counteract the debiliting forces of the modern city.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 084781842X
• ISBN13: 9780847818426
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 4.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 11.4" x 11.4"

Customer Reviews

Beautifully photographed

This book is beautifully photographed and shows a range of Olmsted's work, from Central Park and other parks, to Biltmore and other homes. It even includes photos of Olmsteds own garden. Highly recommended!

FATHER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Really a nice book on the work of the singular Frederick Law Olmsted. The book has well presented images and the text is highly informative. Olmsted was a pioneer in the field of landscape architecture and people in this profession today own him a huge debt of gratitude, as do we all, because he popularized the idea of the great urban neighborhood of the automobile age with it's windening streets and statigically planted trees and shrubs. Olmsted really understood the concept of vista's and how people interact with nature, all you need to do is walk through his Central Park in New York, or one the neighborhood designs he influenced, like Beverly Hills, River Oaks, Grosse Pointe, or Highland Park, these are some of the most saught after neighborhoods in America. His influence is shown in the park designs of Hermann Park in Houston, Audubon Park and City Park in New Orleans, and Golden Gate Park in San Fransisco, just to name of a few, his importance to the field of landscape architecture cannot be overstated. This book does a fine job of illustrating this and I highly recommend it.

The Man Behind Many of Our Treasured Parks

Frederick Law Olmstead (1822 - 1903) ranks among the most important landscape architects of his time, and indeed of history. His most famous accomplishment was his design and execution of the multifaceted magnificence of New York City's Central Park, presented here in this fine book with many of the details that today go unnoticed. Charles Beveridge has written extensively about Olmstead but here his knowledge of Olmstead's genius is enhanced by numerous drawings and maps of layout as well as the beautiful photography by Paul Rocheleau. The entire volume is edited and designed by David Larkin in a manner that not only brings out the scholarly aspects of this book but lays out the various areas in both Central Park and in some of the other Olmstead works (Brooklyn's Prospect Park, the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Biltmore Estate among others) in a fashion that makes this a true art book. There may be many reasons to place this book in the library, but one that is certain to appeal to everyone is the importance of the myriad details of the great Central Park presented here with more majesty than in any other volume. Recommended. Grady Harp, May 06

great stuff

I have been a great fan of Olmstead's design and outlook. This book provides a wonderful overview of his style, his vision and his ideas about how to create beauty out of the natural enivironment. Architects will benefit from his approach to design and construction and his ideas should be a model for those of us new to the field.