Frederick Law Olmsted and His Boston Parks
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THE PLACE AND THE MAKER Frederick Law Olmsted and His Boston Parks JARRET izzo THE CONCEPTION OF THE GILDED AGE URBAN PARK SOUGHT TO RECLAIM SANITARY, RECREATIONAL, SCENIC, AND REFORMIST IDEALS PERCEIVED TO HAVE GONE ASTRAY UNDER INTENSE INDUSTRIALIZATION AND EXPANSION. IN BOSTON, EACH FACTOR TOOK ON CHARACTERISTICS PARTICULAR TO NEW ENGLAND. FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED'S BOSTON SYSTEM WAS A COMPOSITE OF HIS PREVIOUS WORK IN OTHER CITIES. THESE PARKS MANIFESTED THE UNIFICATION OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES THAT ADDRESSED THE PURPOSE AND FUNCTION OF PARKS, AS WELL AS EXEMPLIFIED HIS NATURALISTIC STYLE, BOTH FULLY FORMED BY THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS BOSTON WORK. THE CONFLUENCE OF THE CITY'S GILDED AGE POLITICAL ARENA, THE MAN'S VISION, AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF BOSTON ALLOWED FOR THE MANIPULATION OF PASTURELAND INTO THE MOST ELEGANT AND COMPLETE MANIFESTATION OF HIS DESIGN PHI LOSOPHY. INTRODUCTION coming to the planning and construction of parks com- pared to other American cities that, rapidly expanding in re- Consult the genius of the place in all; sponse to industrial growth and population shifts, com- That tells the waters or to rise, or fall; menced park development closer to the Civil War. The city Or helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale, lacked the luxury of open farmland that into which most Or scoops in circling theatres the vale; American cities expanded. Instead, the Shawmut Calls in the country, catches opening glades, Peninsula on which Boston developed was effectively an is- Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades, land for the first half of the 19th century. Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines; Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.1 The city connected south and west to Roxbury, Dorchester, and Brookline via Boston Neck, a narrow peninsula upon —Alexander Pope which present-day Washington Street ran as a causeway. Landfill projects before the 1850s were limited to the core In 1886, the American landscape architect Frederick Law of the city; the filling of the Mill Pond and construction of Olmsted delivered a paper to the Boston Parks Department the Bulfmch Triangle (near the present-day North Station), regarding a significant expansion of the city's park system, as well as expansion to the east along the docks of the Great much of which he designed in the previous decade. He Cove. The completion of neither of these projects allowed suggested the purchase and development of 500 acres of for significant expansion of open space; land was quickly farmland in West Roxbury into an expansive park, connect- purchased by speculators and developed for commercial ing to other projects on the city's western border. The com- purposes. missioners and city government initially balked at the cost of such an undertaking, yet the deftness of Olmsted's de- What limited greenspace Boston contained through the sign reflected a mature style seen in his other Boston Civil War differed significantly in form and function from spaces—a combination of the pragmatic and the visionary. what was to take shape in the city's parks movement of the "It is most desirable," he presented, "to make use of any 1870s and beyond. The Boston Common, an urban feature local circumstance of the slightest dignity of character to open from the beginning of Boston's settlement by Puritan supply a centre of interest for such grounds. Such a cir- colonists, was primarily pastureland for residents' livestock cumstance may be found, for instance, in a natural feature, and served as the site for large public events, including mil- as a notable rock, or in a historical feature ... or simply in itary drills and capital punishment. Small-scale landfill, a point of vantage for a view, as a prospect down the har- 11 presaging the major Back Bay project, expanded into the bor." Olmsted was well established as America's preemi- West Cove, the present site of the Boston Public Garden. nent landscape architect at the time of his arrival in Boston The formal design imposed on the Public Garden along a decade earlier. Even so, his work in Boston solidified his with its small size contrasted the space with concurrent reputation. The "Emerald Necklace" of parks he would trends of urban park design nationally. The completion of come to design for the metropolis was a system that mas- the Back Bay fill was the catalyst that coincided with the terfully united aspects of his work seen in previous urban emerging political and social commitment to build a park projects, and yet it was entirely unique to the geographic system in accordance with national state of the art. and social concerns of Gilded Age Bostonians. The land expansion Boston desperately needed came in the When ground broke at the Back Bay Fens in 1879, it was the filling of the Back Bay of the Charles River. Planning began first new greenspace construction seen in the city of Boston as early as 1814 but the shallow tidal flats began receiving in two decades. The capital of Massachusetts was late in fill in 1857. While laborers emptied train cars of Needham lum urban design, had been hampered by lack of space and gravel and soil, Olmsted commenced landscape architec- political conservatism. With the completion of the Back ture work in New York City, winning the design competi- Bay fill, the maturation of Boston's socio-political vision, as tion for the new Central Park with architect and partner well as the presence of architect-in-residence, Frederick Calvert Vaux in 1854. Great success followed their ac- Law Olmsted allowed Boston to possess the most function- claimed project in Manhattan and, following the Civil War, ally useful and yet subtly designed park system in the the Olmsted & Vaux firm developed park space in Brooklyn, United States. It was also the masterstroke of Frederick Buffalo, Chicago, and other, primarily northern, cities. Law Olmsted's work—the unique places made within the Though the partnership dissolved amicably in 1872, Emerald Necklace communicated a singular investment Olmsted continued plans for university campuses, small and consideration on the part of a fully developed artist. squares, and pubic grounds while maintaining the post of Olmsted awakened the spirit of places in Boston previously superintendent of Central Park disregarded, such as Franklin Park, and taking numerous European or outright shunned as at the Back tours to observe the state of park Bay Fens. Through his guidance, and urban design, particularly in the city of Boston constructed a England and Paris. His firm's park system that captured not only move to Brookline in 1878, and the the spirit of the contemporary city, subsequent concentration on the but also the one that was to come Boston work saw the beginning of through the next century. his career's mature period. In 19th century Boston, space was Leaving his managerial post at at a premium. Olmsted's park sys- Central Park in 1878, Olmsted tem at once fundamentally shifted moved his household and firm to the city's future growth toward a Brookline, MA, just west of the spacious, suburban archetype Boston city line. The move con- while tangibly manifesting the so- verged with an escalation of the cial mores of Gilded Age Boston. In metropolis' political and social de- addition, the spaces created in the mand for large-scale park develop- special moment where Boston and RECLAIMED SWAMP A LONG THE MUDDY ment. Olmsted's availability to his Olmsted intersect as design and de- RIVER CONNECTED PA RKS TO THE SOUTH new community created the oppor- signer demand study of the her- tunity for a mature artist to design parks at a mature site. itage of each individually. The social and political currents The Back Bay fill, a public works project on par with the Big underlying Boston's motivation for a park system were rep- Dig of the 1990s, was complete just west of Massachusetts resentative of attitudes felt in cities nationally. This era's Avenue and the city was ripe for further development. A conception of the urban park sought to reclaim sanitary, Bostonian wrote to Olmsted during these early planning recreational, scenic, and reformist ideals perceived to have stages of the Boston Park System: "Boston is a crooked and gone astray under intense industrialization and urban ex- confused territory; if we ever get it straightened out, it must pansion. In Boston, each of these motivations took on char- be in the next or succeeding generations; if we are to have acteristics particular to New England. Frederick Law parks, now is the time to secure the lands for the Olmsted's Boston system was a composite of his previous purpose." ; Bostonians, late to the table in terms of postbel- work in other cities. These parks manifested the unifica- THE PLACE AND THE MAKER tion of design principles that addressed the purpose and function of parks, as well as exemplified his naturalistic style, both fully formed by the commencement of his Boston work. OLMSTED! HIS INFLUENCES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS STYLE Frederick Law Olmsted is largely credited with raising the job of landscape architect to an individual profession. He once wrote to a friend, "If a fairy had shaped [my career], it could not have fitted me better."v Perhaps it appealed and unified his eclectic interests, as he was to come to park de- sign following many fits and starts in separate careers. He was, in turn, a seaman in youth, a farmer, and a travel writer through the American south. His initial travel writing took a distinct color in response to a tour of England with his brother John and boyhood friend Charles Loring Brace in 1850.