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Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822-1903

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Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect, 1822-1903 OS I o L I B R A PLY O F THE U N I V ERS !TY or 1 LLl N015 CPU t The person charging' this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN jum9»9» APR 9''^^ NOV 2 6 1 i) mi i-i'R: •M- OCT 12 01991 OCT 3 99t JAN 1 i L161—O-1096 FORTY YEARS OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE BEING THE PROFESSIONAL PAPERS OF FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED, SENIOR LIBRARY m^lVERSITY OF ILUNOiS URBANA Frederick Law Olmsted in 1850 FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT 1822-1903 EDITED BY FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED, JR. AND THEODORA KIMBALL EARLY YEARS AND EXPERIENCES TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ILLUSTRATED G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON Ubc Ikntcherbocfter press 1922 Copyright, 1922 by Frederick Law Olmsted Made in the United States of America ON THE CENTENNIAL YEAR OF HIS BIRTH IS PUBLISHED THIS FIRST VOLUME OF THE PROFESSIONAL PAPERS OF FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED PREFACE The richness and variety of the professional papers left by- Frederick Law Olmsted, Senior, is astonishing, especially in view of the enormous amount of work on the ground which he accomplished in the almost forty years of his active career as a Landscape Architect. Orderly and thorough by habit of thought, he wrote down with minute care the various steps of his professional dealings, in many cases retaining unused drafts which show valuable processes of mind. From the beginning he realized fully the importance of presenting the new profession to the public in a favorable light, and was constantly "coming before the pubHc,"—as the phrase went, —in the daily press and in occasional pamphlets. Several of his professional reports also were printed at his own expense, but a far greater number have lain buried in the files of Park Department Documents or have never been printed in any form. His personal life after 1857 was so closely bound up with his professional activities that his family and friendly letters reveal many sideHghts on his work. The record of his professional correspondence is fortunately full. When the political harassments to which he was subjected prevented him from sleeping, he used to while away the hours of the night by writing, sometimes in regard to his current problems and sometimes bits of general wisdom gained in his profes- sional experience. About 1890 when he was obliged in some degree to lessen his travelling about, he wrote several long retrospective letters, reviewing his career, and he left also two or three short fragments of autobiography, which are included in this present volume. Among the many people outside the Olmsted family who had preserved and were able to return letters for editorial purposes, there should be especially mentioned: the late Frederick J. Kingsbury of Waterbury, Conn., who added to the letters a valuable group of reminiscences; Miss Emma Brace (letters to her father Charles Loring Brace) who as- sisted also in the preliminary sorting of Olmsted letters; Miss —; Vlll Preface Sarah Norton (letters to her father Charles Eliot Norton) and the Vaux family, who have aided the editors of Mr. Olmsted's papers in every possible way, Mr. Bowyer Vaux especially, and given permission for the publication in Vol. Two of several very illuminating letters from Calvert Vaux to Mr. Olmsted, in 1864-65, which formed a turning point in the latter's career. The present volume of Mr. Olmsted's papers is intended as an introduction to a series covering his main activities as a Landscape Architect. The writings are to be arranged by large groups, according to the nature of the works in connec- tion with which they were written,—public parks and park systems, town plans, land subdivisions, grounds for public and semi-public buildings, private estates, and so on. This somewhat arbitrary rather than sequential arrangement is adopted perforce because Mr. Olmsted's writings—illuminat- ing as they are in regard to principles of wide application relate, with few exceptions, directly to some specific prob- lem or set of conditions, dealing with the case now from the point of view of aesthetics, now from that of utility and con- venience or economy, sometimes from that of the sociologist, sometimes from that of the administrator or that of the artisan. Mr. Olmsted wrote not primarily to set forth general theories but to show how to get satisfactory results under actual specific circumstances and requirements as he found them, or to carry conviction of the wisdom of certain courses of action which he advised. In this connection it is interesting to compare his profes- sional writings with those of A. J. Downing,—whose friend- ship unquestionably did much to stimulate and develop Mr. Olmsted's interest in landscape matters, and whose activities in the Central Park campaign and in bringing Calvert Vaux into relations with Mr. Olmsted led the latter so unexpectedly into the profession. It is very striking to note the contrast between Downing's somewhat doctrinaire and a priori method of discussing landscape problems, and Mr. Olmsted's habitual method, which was frankly to envisage the peculiar facts of each situation as an individual problem to be solved on its own merits in its own individual way, and then to test and perhaps correct his conclusions by reasoning back to find principles consistent alike with the facts and artistic intui-* tions present in this particular case and with other principles Preface ix and theories accepted by him as sound and true. He looked on theories and "principles" as valuable tools of service, inevitably incomplete and defective, frequently in need of reshaping, sharpening and improvement, and he was seldom tempted to overlook or minimize new and special factors in a problem merely because their recognition would force him to modify what he had come to regard as firmly established principles. As a result of his method of writing Mr. Olmsted's pub- lished papers must necessarily be a somewhat disjointed com- pilation, passages of the greatest interest and value for their applicability to problems of residential property occurring in the discussion of a park problem and vice versa, points of detail in matters of technique sometimes coming cheek by jowl with discussions of fundamentally controlling purposes. It is proposed, however, to round out the series by a general volume which will weave together many fragments and ex- tracts,—mainly from letters and reports not considered worthy of presentation in extenso in the previous volumes, together with connecting and explanatory matter by F. L. Olmsted, Junior,—into an orderly and consistent presenta- tion of the theory and practice of the landscape art as de- veloped by Frederick Law Olmsted, Senior. This last volume is also to contain a full subject index to all the material in the whole series of volumes, thus opening for ready reference a mine of information on hundreds of topics in the field of landscape architecture and administration of public works. While Volume One is devoted to the background of Mr. Olmsted's professional career. Volume Two will deal with his first professional undertaking, the New York Central Park, designed in cooperation with Calvert Vaux, which marks the beginning of a new era of parks and of civic design in America. On this account it has seemed desirable to give a much fuller presentation of Mr. Olmsted's papers relating to Central Park than can be given to any other single example of design. This is the more justifiable because many of the later park reports repeat and develop principles first stated in connec- tion with Central Park. Furthermore the history of Central Park is considered of such importance in the development of the City of New York that the Russell Sage Foundation, in connection with the survey of Greater New York and Environs, has made a special grant to enable the editors of the Olmsted Papers to X Preface produce a monograph on Central Park which shall not only present the Park from the standpoint of design, but shall also give a connected history of its conception, design, construc- tion, and management up to the time of its fullest develop- ment before its principal designers lost touch with it in the 8o's. The volume will therefore offer not merely, or even primarily, Mr. Olmsted's personal contribution as a designer, but rather the conception of the park as he always regarded it, —as a great collaborative effort in and for a democratic community. The editorial work on the great mass of Mr. Olmsted's papers personal and professional was begun soon after his death by F. L. Olmsted, Junior. At this time, 1903-04, the bulk of the papers was gone over and separated into the more and less important, and a beginning made on their arrange- ment, with the assistance of Mr. Philip P. Sharpies. In the spring of 1920, Mr. F. L. Olmsted engaged the present editor's services to bring the material into definitive form for publication, while Mrs. Frederick Law Olmsted, Senior, was still alive to lend the aid of her memory to the work. During the summer and fall of 1920 Mrs. Olmsted, at ninety years of age, made it her major occupation, saw the scheme of the whole series of volumes take shape, and approved the selec- tion of material for the first volume, in which she herself had perhaps the greatest personal interest.
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