FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED

Plans and Views of Communities and Private Estates

EDITED BY CHARLES E. BEVERIDGE, LAUREN MEIER , AND IRENE MILLS

Master landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) is renowned for his public parks, but few know the extent of his accomplishment in meeting other needs of society.

FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED

Plans and Views of Communities and Private Estates

edited by CHARLES E. BEVERIDGE, LAUREN MEIER, and IRENE MILLS

Lavishly illustrated with over 500 images, this book presents Olmsted’s design commissions for a wide range of projects. The rich collection of studies, lithographs, paintings, and historical photographs depicts Olmsted’s planning for residential communities, regional and town plans, academic campuses, grounds of public buildings, zoos, arboreta, and cemeteries. Focusing on living spaces designed to promote physical and mental well-being, the book showcases more than seventy of Olmsted’s designs, including the community of Riverside, IL; the Stanford University campus; the US Capitol grounds; the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893; the National Zoo; and George W. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate.

Illuminating Olmsted’s design theory, this volume displays the beautiful plans and reveals the significance of each commission within his entire body of work. Readers concerned with the quality of the environment in which we live and work, as well as architects, landscape architects, urban planners, historians, and preservationists, will find stimulating insights in Plans and Views of Communities and Private Estates.

Charles E. Beveridge (ALEXANDRIA, VA) is the leading Olmsted authority in the country and the series editor of The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted. Lauren Meier (BELMONT, MA) is a landscape preservationist and a coeditor of The Master List of Design Projects of the Olmsted Firm, 1857–1979. Irene Mills (SPRINGFIELD, VA) is a landscape designer. Beveridge, Meier, and Mills are the coeditors of Frederick Law Olmsted: Plans and Views of Public Parks.

FULL OF ORIGINAL PLANS AND HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS, THIS BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED COLLECTION IS THE FIRST COMPREHENSIVE PRESENTATION OF OLMSTED’S DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR COMMUNITIES AND PRIVATE ESTATES.

“A MAJOR CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS, AN IMPORTANT STEP IN THE DOCUMENTATION OF THIS AMERICAN GENIUS.” —Smithsonian

“[S]UPERBLY DONE, REFLECTING CREDIT ON BOTH THE EDITORS AND PUBLISHER. A NECESSARY ADDITION TO ALL UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE LIBRARIES.” —Choice

“[H]ANDSOMELY PRODUCED, AND THE EDITORS HAVE PROVIDED THE EDITORIAL SCAFFOLDING THAT HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MAJOR GLORIES OF AMERICAN HISTORICAL SCHOLARSHIP.” —Maryland Historical Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Introduction

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four

Residential Communities Industrial Areas Regional and Town Planning Private Estates

Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight Chapter Nine

Academic Campuses Residential Institutions Grounds of Government and Public Buildings Expositions Summer Communities Chapter Ten Resorts and Hotels Chapter Eleven Zoos and Arboreta Chapter Twelve Cemeteries and Memorials List of Illustrations List of Repositories Index

The Court of Honor

John Root’s compiled “Block Plan” that the architects agreed to adopt in early January 1891 established the grand central entrance court, which came to be called the “Court of Honor,” as a principal feature of the Exposition. As designed by the five leading architects to whom the exhibition buildings fronting on the court were assigned, the architectural effect of the court was remarkable. Under Burnham’s leadership an impressive unity among the buildings was achieved by a uniform cornice height and employment of a single classical style, variously called “Francis I” or “Italian Renaissance.” This choice led Olmsted to remark to his partners about the “grand, permanent monuments” that these structures of staff—a kind of plaster of Paris—were to be constructed, expressing a concern that they were “going to look too assuming of architectural stateliness and to be overburdened with sculptural and other efforts for grandeur and grandiloquent pomp.” 8 After all, the purpose of the Fair was not to construct a city, but rather to erect a temporary stage-set for a festive celebration.

8.8. Bird’s eye view of Exposition, 1893

A later requirement was added, that the facades of these buildings be uniformly white. This caused the resignation of William Pretyman, the director of color for the Exposition, and led to popular designation of the Fair as the “White City.” Olmsted was surprised and disconcerted by this development. “The architects are going to make it much whiter than, having regard to general effects of landscape or scenery, I should have been disposed to have them,” he declared, “I fear that against the clear blue sky and the blue lake, great towering masses of white, glistening in the clear, hot Summer sunlight of Chicago, with the glare of the water that we are to have both within and without the Exposition grounds, will be overpowering.” 9 His solution was one that he had already considered as a way to provide elements of variety and festivity for the Exposition.

8. FLO, “Report to Partners on Exposition Universelle,” [April 25–29, 1892]; Papers of FLO, 9: 511.

9. FLO to Rudolph Ulrich, March 11, 1893; Papers of FLO, 9: 606.